Sam Altman’s OpenAI has discussed handing the current US government a five per cent stake in the company in an attempt to clear political hurdles, the Financial Times has reported.
Altman has argued that handing part of the company to the public is the best way to share the upsides of AI, and has put forward the five per cent figure in early conversations with the administration, the paper said, citing two people familiar with the matter.
The proposal by Altman would also involve other AI labs offering a similar stake, though it is unclear if they would be willing to do so.
There is some precedent for such a move. The US government acquired 10 per cent of chipmaker Intel in August of last year, with Trump saying it was “a great deal for them”.
OpenAI, and its main competitor Anthropic, have experienced increased scrutiny by the Trump administration in recent months, with both companies’ most advanced models facing restrictions over cybersecurity concerns.
Some in Trump’s party, including his close advisors, want tighter controls over the AI sector as a whole, with Florida governor Ron DeSantis calling attempts to pre-empt state level regulation “bad policy” and “even worse politics” in June.
“Conceptual” talks between the government and OpenAI are in early stages, and a deal may require an act of congress to implement, the FT said, citing sources close to the matter.
Altman has also spoken to Vermont senator Bernie Sanders in recent weeks, it added, following Sanders’s call for partial public ownership of US AI companies.
In April, the company proposed what it called a public wealth fund that would provide all citizens with a stake in AI-driven economic growth. Its non-profit, the OpenAI Foundation, said in May that “society will likely need new approaches that give people durable stakes in the systems creating value”, in a hypothetical AI-driven future.
OpenAI is currently on track to lose at least $14 billion this year based on its own calculations.
