OpenAI Reportedly in Talks to Give Trump Administration 5% Stake Worth $42 Billion

OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, is engaged in early conversations to hand a 5% equity stake in the company to the Trump administration, according to a report by the Financial Times.

The preliminary proposal suggests a sweeping arrangement where leading U.S. artificial intelligence companies would allocate 5% of their equity to a centralized government vehicle. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has championed the concept, arguing that the framework would allow the American public to directly share in the massive financial upside generated by the artificial intelligence boom.

Based on a corporate funding round in March that valued OpenAI at $852 billion, a 5% share in the company would be worth an estimated $42.6 billion. Under the current proposal, executives have suggested structuring the public asset similarly to the Alaska Permanent Fund, a sovereign wealth fund that invests state oil revenues into financial markets to pay out annual dividends to residents. OpenAI previously published a policy paper in April advocating for a "public wealth fund" to provide every citizen with a financial stake in AI-driven economic growth.

Any finalized equity agreement of this scale would likely require an act of Congress to implement. It remains unclear whether rival AI developers are supportive of the equity-sharing initiative. However, the Trump administration has already demonstrated an appetite for sovereign corporate investments, having acquired a 10% stake in chipmaker Intel for $8.9 billion.

The high-stakes negotiations arrive at a time of severe regulatory friction between the White House and top-tier AI developers. The U.S. government has recently slowed down highly anticipated product rollouts due to safety and national security reviews. A source familiar with the matter noted that the White House recently requested OpenAI to restrict the launch of its upcoming GPT 5.6 model to a small group of government-approved partners.

Similarly, competitor Anthropic had the deployment of its advanced Claude models held up by federal oversight until the U.S. government lifted specific export controls following intense negotiations.

The discussions regarding public stakes come as both OpenAI and Anthropic actively prepare for stock market listings. Their upcoming initial public offerings (IPOs) will eventually force the highly guarded companies to lift the veil on their internal finances for public and regulatory review.

Reporting contributed by Hanna Ziady, CNN.