The U.S. could acquire a stake in OpenAI and other AI giants. This is Altman's proposal — FT

OpenAI has offered the U.S. government a 5% stake in the company, according to sources cited by the Financial Times. The developer of ChatGPT thus intends to share the benefits of AI development with the public—this could involve distributing revenues through a government fund.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has held preliminary talks with the White House administration and U.S. President Donald Trump himself regarding the transfer of a 5% stake to the government, according to the FT. In addition, the startup’s CEO proposed that Washington receive similar stakes in each of the leading U.S. AI companies, such as Anthropic, Google, and Meta. However, the publication notes that nothing is known about whether these companies themselves have agreed to the proposal.

According to the newspaper, the proposal involved a counterpart to the Alaska Permanent Fund—a sovereign wealth fund that invests revenues from the state’s oil industry and pays dividends to residents.

Altman explained his initiative by saying that government participation in the company’s capital is the best way to distribute the benefits of the AI industry’s growth among citizens. The company is thus attempting to remove political obstacles and secure the White House’s support, the FT reports.

According to Bloomberg, the head of OpenAI discussed the idea of government ownership stakes in AI giants with the administration as early as 2025. The agency notes that in early June, Trump expressed interest in the government owning shares in leading AI developers through a sovereign wealth fund, which would channel a portion of the proceeds to benefit Americans.

All of this is happening against the backdrop of mounting pressure from Washington on major AI companies. In June, OpenAI postponed the full launch of its GPT-5.6 model at the request of the U.S. government, and Anthropic suspended its most powerful models after authorities demanded that access be restricted for foreign nationals on national security grounds. On July 1, the restrictions on Anthropic’s Fable 5 model were lifted: the company had resolved the administration’s concerns.

At the same time, calls for a fairer distribution of the profits from the AI boom are growing louder—amid mounting fears that AI will replace jobs, Bloomberg notes.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor