OpenAI has reportedly discussed giving the US government a 5 per cent stake in the company, according to the Financial Times, in a proposal that could reshape the relationship between Washington and America’s leading artificial intelligence companies.
Reuters reported that it could not immediately verify the Financial Times report. OpenAI and the White House did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment outside regular business hours.
OpenAI Discusses Public Stake Proposal
The reported proposal would see OpenAI allocate equity to a vehicle similar to the Alaska Permanent Fund, the state-owned corporation funded by oil revenues that pays annual dividends to Alaska residents and supports the state budget.
According to the Financial Times, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and other executives have suggested that leading US AI companies should each hand over 5 per cent of their equity to a public ownership vehicle. It remains unclear whether other AI companies would agree to take part.
Altman has reportedly discussed the idea with President Donald Trump, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. The Financial Times also reported that he has spoken to Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders in recent weeks.
The talks come as Washington increases its scrutiny of advanced AI companies, including questions around national security, model access and how Americans might benefit financially from the sector’s expected growth.
Trump Has Already Raised the Idea
The proposal follows earlier comments from Trump, who said in June that his administration was looking at whether the public should receive a stake in leading AI companies.
The idea sits within a broader political debate about whether the profits created by artificial intelligence should flow only to investors and private companies, or whether ordinary citizens should receive a share of that growth too.
OpenAI has previously proposed a “public wealth fund” that could invest in companies benefiting from AI and distribute returns directly to citizens. Anthropic has separately explored the idea of a “digital dividend”, which Reuters described as payments to Americans funded by taxes on the AI sector.
Sanders has pushed a much larger version of public ownership. In a June opinion piece, he said he planned to introduce the American A.I. Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, which would give the public a direct ownership stake in the country’s largest AI companies through a one-time 50 per cent stock tax.
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Proposal Comes During AI Scrutiny
The reported OpenAI proposal arrives during a tense period for US AI policy.
Reuters reported that OpenAI delayed the full public launch of GPT-5.6 last week at the US government’s request. It also reported that the US government had ordered Anthropic to suspend access to its frontier AI models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, for foreign nationals over national security risks.
Those curbs on Anthropic’s AI models were removed on Tuesday, according to the Reuters report.
The discussions also come as OpenAI and Anthropic have both confidentially filed for US initial public offerings, according to Reuters. That makes questions around ownership, valuation and public benefit more immediate, especially as investors continue to place large bets on AI infrastructure and model development.
For now, the reported 5 per cent stake remains a proposal under discussion, not a confirmed agreement. Reuters said it could not immediately verify the Financial Times report, and neither OpenAI nor the White House had provided immediate comment at the time of publication.
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