OpenAI proposal: Give 5% of its shares to the U.S. government

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OpenAI is seeking political support in exchange for equity, attempting to ease rising regulatory pressures by offering the U.S. government a direct stake in the company.

According to the UK’s Financial Times, citing two people familiar with the matter, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has proposed, in early talks with the Trump administration, to offer the U.S. government about 5% of the company’s equity.

The core logic of this proposal is: to allow the public to gain direct financial benefits from AI development, thereby winning political goodwill for this startup, valued at $852 billion. The relevant negotiations remain at a "conceptual" stage, and implementation may require legislative authorization by Congress.

Against this backdrop, OpenAI and its main competitor Anthropic have recently faced U.S. regulatory scrutiny, with delays in the release of their cutting-edge models. Meanwhile, some Republicans and Trump advisors are pushing for stricter regulation of the AI industry. For OpenAI, winning the government as a stakeholder may be the most direct way to break the impasse.

Wide scope of negotiations, involving several senior government officials

Multiple sources say that Sam Altman has communicated actively with the Trump administration on the issue of public equity, speaking with President Trump himself, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

Altman recently also met with Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders. Previously, Sanders advocated for a sovereign wealth fund to hold close to 50% equity in every American AI company, a much more radical position than OpenAI’s proposal.

OpenAI’s idea draws inspiration from the Alaska Permanent Fund—this fund puts Alaska’s oil wealth into the stock market and distributes dividends to the state government and residents. OpenAI and other AI companies may each set aside 5% of their equity to be injected into a similar sovereign fund.

The proposal may expand to the entire industry, but attitudes are uncertain

OpenAI’s proposal is not limited to itself. Altman and other OpenAI executives suggest that major U.S. AI developers—including Anthropic, Google, Meta, etc.—should allocate equity to the fund at the same proportion.

However, according to the Financial Times, it is currently unclear whether these companies are willing to accept this plan.

Notably, both OpenAI and Anthropic are preparing to go public, which will further broaden their shareholder base and bring substantial returns to existing investors. OpenAI’s IPO could be delayed until next year.

The idea of public equity is longstanding, not a response to recent events

This proposal is not a spur-of-the-moment idea for OpenAI. As early as April this year, OpenAI proposed establishing a “public wealth fund,” with the goal of “allowing every citizen—including those who do not participate in financial market investments—to benefit from AI-driven economic growth.”

OpenAI’s nonprofit affiliate, the OpenAI Foundation, also stated in May that in an AI-driven future, “society may need new ways to give people a lasting share of the value created,” explicitly pointing to public or sovereign wealth fund models. In a blog post, the foundation wrote: “The goal is not only to help people cope with economic changes after decisions have been made, but to give them a stake and voice in shaping those changes.”

From a more macro perspective, Trump previously publicly criticized Intel’s management but shifted to a supportive attitude immediately after the U.S. government acquired a 10% stake in Intel—this precedent may well be an important reference for OpenAI’s current proposal.

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