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OpenAI has proposed giving the US government a 5% stake in the company as it seeks to ease growing political pressure in Washington, the Financial Times reported Thursday.
The potential holding would be worth roughly $42.6 billion after OpenAI closed a record funding round in March at a post-money valuation of $852 billion, according to the report.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman argued that giving the public a financial interest in the company would be the best way to share the upside of AI, the FT reported, citing two people familiar with the talks.
Altman suggested the 5% stake in early discussions with the Trump administration as part of a broader arrangement under which Washington would hold stakes of the same size in leading US AI developers through a government vehicle, the report said.
The proposed structure could also include other major US AI companies, such as Anthropic, Google and Meta, ceding similar stakes to the government through a sovereign wealth fund-style vehicle.
It remains unclear whether those companies would agree to such a proposal.
The reported pitch comes as pressure has been building on major US AI firms, with Washington increasingly concerned about cybersecurity vulnerabilities linked to advanced models and rising competition from Chinese open-source models that are nearly as capable but significantly cheaper than some leading American systems.
Anthropic disabled access to its most advanced Mythos and Fable models last month to comply with a government export control directive. The Claude developer said Tuesday that it had been cleared to restore access after taking steps to resolve policymakers’ safety concerns.
OpenAI’s proposal followed more than a year of talks about a possible government stake in the company, CNBC reported last month, adding that Altman first pitched the concept directly to the Trump administration in early 2025.
In April, OpenAI proposed creating a “public wealth fund” to hold assets capturing growth in AI companies and distribute the economic benefits to the public.
The Trump administration has previously taken stakes in private companies, including Intel, IBM and firms in the quantum and critical minerals sectors during the president’s second term.
The US government obtained a 10% stake in Intel after an $8.9 billion investment in the chipmaker’s common stock in August last year.
President Donald Trump said in May that he should have asked for a larger stake in Intel. He has also described the US taking ownership stakes in AI giants as “a beautiful thing” that would make Americans “partners in this revolution.”
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