OpenAI is in talks to transfer a 5% stake to the U.S. government ahead of its planned public listing, the Financial Times reported this week.
The company has also floated the idea for other major US AI companies to follow suit, although it’s unclear whether rivals will follow suit, e.g. Anthropic selection Or Google will agree. The proposal is still in the early stages of discussion, and the U.S. government has yet to issue any official statement confirming or denying the report.
Why are the discussions taking place now?
OpenAI’s pitch is seen as an attempt to draw closer to the Trump administration, which has stepped up scrutiny of U.S. artificial intelligence companies amid growing concerns that AI will displace jobs while concentrating wealth in the hands of a few companies.
Last month, President Donald Trump said he was exploring ways to let ordinary Americans benefit from artificial intelligence companies, citing concerns that the public was not sharing in the industry’s profits.
OpenAI’s proposals dovetail with the government’s thinking of positioning itself as a way for AI companies to give back to citizens.
It has also become a practical need to properly handle the relationship with the US government. open artificial intelligence Last month, it delayed the wider release of its latest model at the request of the Trump administration.
Around the same time, the U.S. government separately ordered Anthropic to revoke access to its most advanced artificial intelligence models to foreigners over national security concerns. The suspension was lifted after Anthropic assured the government that an immediate fix had been made. Anthropic also said it was cooperating with the administration after months of tense relations with the Trump administration.
Also read: Why Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Meta are spending billions on artificial intelligence: explained
The timing raises the stakes. OpenAI is preparing for an initial public offering that could value the company at as much as $1 trillion.
While market enthusiasm supports the AI boom, building AI at scale requires massive amounts of capital. Chips, data centers and infrastructure all require billions of dollars, and government funding or support can help offset those costs, Reuters reported.
proposal
Under the plans reported by the Financial Times, the 5% stake in OpenAI is unlikely to vest directly with government officials and could instead be held in a dedicated public investment fund. Reuters reports that the fund could be modeled after Alaska’s Permanent Fund, which invests state revenue in oil and pays annual dividends to residents.
This idea is not new. Earlier this year, OpenAI proposed creating a “public wealth fund” that would invest in AI companies and distribute the profits to U.S. citizens, according to a company statement released in April. “Returns from the fund can be distributed directly to citizens, allowing more people to directly participate in the benefits of AI-driven growth,” the company said.
Anthropic, another American giant behind Claude Eyre The model proposes a parallel concept: a “digital dividend,” in which Americans would receive payments funded by taxes on artificial intelligence companies.
Joseph Blasi, who teaches corporate governance at Rutgers University, explained that artificial intelligence is built using public data, public research and public infrastructure, so the public should share in its financial returns, Reuters reported.
“America’s public infrastructure is the domain of citizens. It’s not something that can be easily seized by a billionaire here or there or a trillionaire here or there,” Brasi said.
Other backers of the plan suggest offering citizens financial stakes in AI companies.
The issue came into focus in mid-June, when Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders called for the government to take a 50% stake in large artificial intelligence companies, arguing that artificial intelligence is based on human knowledge and that ordinary Americans should benefit from it. Sanders also demands government representation on corporate boards.
Other technical routes have also surfaced. Some legal experts have suggested that the government collect taxes in the form of company stock rather than cash, a mechanism that would give Washington ownership without having to spend taxpayer money to buy it.
Another approach suggested by policymakers is for the U.S. government to invest directly in AI companies in exchange for equity, similar to the way it took a roughly 10% stake in Intel in exchange for funding.
The U.S. government will acquire a 9.9% stake in Intel and MP Materials in 2025 to strengthen critical semiconductor and rare earth supply chains and reduce dependence on China.
risk
Some analysts have pointed to potential drawbacks to this arrangement.
Indranil Bandyopadhyay, principal analyst at Forrester Research, told Reuters that a government stake could appease investors nervous about future U.S. government regulation, but other countries may require similar stakes of their own before granting market access to AI companies.
This could hinder the global expansion of AI companies.
Another concern is that government involvement could undermine a company’s independence, as the government may be more focused on protecting its investments rather than acting as a neutral regulator. There are also concerns that politics could influence AI development and company decisions.
Why is artificial intelligence now considered a national security issue?
According to Axios, the Trump administration has increasingly viewed artificial intelligence through economic and national security lenses, limiting foreign companies’ access to advanced models while working to keep the United States ahead of the competition with China.
The U.S. government views cutting-edge artificial intelligence, chips, and other related infrastructure as strategic national assets and a source of economic and military power. In July 2025, the White House launched what it called “Winning the Race: America’s Artificial Intelligence Action Plan.” The document opens with a quote from Trump: “As our global competitors compete to exploit these technologies, it is a national security imperative for the United States to achieve and maintain undisputed and unchallenged global technological dominance.”
