OpenAI was in early discussions with Donald Trump's administration about transferring a 5% stake in the company to the U.S. government. This was reported by the Financial Times (FT), citing informed sources.
With the company valued at $852 billion, a 5% stake would be worth approximately $42.6 billion. The report links this proposal to a funding round in March. Reuters stated it could not independently verify FT's information, and both OpenAI and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.
What OpenAI Discussed
According to FT, the idea was promoted by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who allegedly discussed the plan with Donald Trump, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Senator Bernie Sanders. Sources told the publication that Altman suggested a public financial interest could be a way to distribute the benefits of artificial intelligence development.
The broader scheme proposed that other leading U.S. AI developers would also transfer similar stakes to the government, the media claims. Earlier, NOTUS reported that officials were discussing the possibility of obtaining stakes with major AI-focused companies. According to the publication, Altman first proposed this idea to Trump in early 2025.
NOTUS also noted that Anthropic is not in talks with the U.S. administration about transferring a stake to the government.
Connection to the Public Wealth Fund
The scheme is not described as a typical sale of a stake to the government. According to FT, the stake could be transferred to a Public Wealth Fund. OpenAI publicly outlined such an idea in an April document titled Industrial Policy for the Intelligence Age, proposing the creation of a fund that would give citizens a share in the economic growth associated with AI.
The document states that such a structure could invest in long-term diversified assets, including AI companies and businesses implementing the technology. The fund's returns were proposed to be distributed directly among citizens.
FT reported that Altman considered the Alaska Permanent Fund as a model. This fund invests the state's oil revenues and pays annual dividends to residents. However, the legal structure of the potential transfer was not disclosed. It remains unclear whether the discussion involved voting shares, only economic rights, or another form of state participation.
Importance Before IPO
On June 8, OpenAI confirmed the confidential submission of an S-1 form to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company did not disclose the parameters of a potential offering and emphasized that it had not yet determined the timeline for further steps.
In this context, the potential involvement of the government in the capital remains a sensitive issue for ownership structure ahead of the IPO. If such a scheme is formalized, it could become a significant factor for future disclosures to investors.
The idea intersects with a broader discussion in the U.S. about whether citizens should receive economic benefits from the AI boom. As noted by Reuters, Trump had previously mentioned exploring such options.
Sanders separately proposed another initiative that suggests a one-time 50% tax on the shares of major AI companies, including OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI, with the transfer of voting shares to the government and participation in management. This scheme differs from the proposal attributed to Altman by FT. In OpenAI's case, the publication reported that it involved a voluntary transfer of a 5% stake to fund the Public Wealth Fund.
The FT article comes amid increasing government regulation of advanced AI models in the U.S. In June, OpenAI limited the launch of GPT-5.6 at the request of authorities, while the U.S. temporarily imposed export restrictions on Anthropic's Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models.
Additionally, in the same month, Republican Senators Tim Scott and Bill Hagerty introduced a bill to protect American information and communication technology supply chains. The document amends the Export Control Reform Act of 2018.