OpenAI has proposed handing the United States government a 5% ownership stake in the company, a slice worth close to $42.6 billion based on its most recent $852 billion valuation, according to a Financial Times report.
The idea, pitched by CEO Sam Altman, would not stop at OpenAI. It calls for other major American AI developers, including Anthropic, Google, and Meta, to hand over similar stakes into a shared public fund.
The Alaska Model
Altman is reportedly using the Alaska Permanent Fund (APF) as his template. Set up in 1976, the APF invests the state’s oil revenue and pays Alaskans an annual dividend. Altman’s version would apply the same idea to AI, giving ordinary Americans a direct financial stake in the industry even if they never buy a share of stock.
According to sources close to the matter, he has discussed the proposal directly with President Trump, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and the concept builds on a “public wealth fund” that was published in its Industrial Policy for the Intelligence Age white paper OpenAI published in April.
Why Now
The timing lines up with a rough few weeks for AI companies in Washington. Last month, Anthropic had to suspend access to its most advanced models, Mythos 5 and Fable 5, to comply with a government export control order, before access was restored last week.
OpenAI has also faced its own scrutiny, after the White House asked it to limit the early release of GPT 5.6 to approved partners. Altman has argued that giving the public a real financial interest in AI is the fairest way to share its upside, which is a message aimed at both calming political pressure and building goodwill with the government.
A Pattern Beyond OpenAI
Government equity in private companies is no longer a novel idea under this administration. The U.S. took a roughly 10% stake in Intel last year in exchange for an $8.9 billion investment, and it has since taken positions in critical minerals firms and negotiated revenue sharing arrangements with Nvidia and AMD over chip sales to China.
In this case, an OpenAI stake would extend that same approach from chips and minerals into the AI industry itself.
Still Just a Proposal
Nothing here is finalized, as it still remains a proposal. The talks are described as early and conceptual, and any real arrangement would likely need congressional approval. It is not clear whether Google, Meta or Anthropic would agree to give up 5% of their equity, and none of the four companies have confirmed the report publicly. The White House has also not confirmed it intends to pursue the stake.
But for now, it is clear that the federal government is increasingly using equity stakes as a policy tool in strategic industries, moving piece by piece rather than through one coordinated plan. For OpenAI, the offer costs it nothing today but a slice of future profit, and it buys something the company clearly values right now – a steadier relationship with the government that regulates the industry it finds itself in.
