What we know about the plan to give Americans an equity stake in AI
OpenAI has proposed a sovereign-wealth-style fund to ease public anxiety about the impact of artificial intelligence
Donald Trump caught much of the AI industry by surprise this week when he threw his weight behind a radical proposal for companies such as OpenAI to hand equity stakes to the American people.
Elements of the idea, which started as a fringe argument on the progressive left, have recently drawn support from an unlikely cast of characters: Trump cabinet members, democratic socialists such as Bernie Sanders and Maga populists such as Steve Bannon.
But the concept suddenly gained more traction in the White House after OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman visited Capitol Hill this week.
The plan proposed by his company, alongside others, would involve setting up a sovereign-wealth-style fund into which AI companies would contribute equity so the American public can share in the lossmaking sector’s soaring valuations, according to people familiar with the matter.
This would be distinct from the $9bn stake the Trump administration took in chipmaker Intel last year, as the public would own shares individually, rather than the US government directly owning equity, according to a person with knowledge of OpenAI’s plans.
Here is what else we know about the discussions to date.
What are the proposals?
In response to a question about equity stakes on Air Force One on Friday, Trump suggested “pieces [of AI companies] could be given to the American public” in an effort to quell the growing alarm around the rapid rollout of the technology.
Industry sources told the FT that a voluntary contribution of small amounts of equity — led by OpenAI — was the most likely outcome. This would be used to build a fund that is distributed to Americans, similar to the scheme Alaska has for redistributing oil revenues.
Brad Gerstner, a large investor in Anthropic and OpenAI, said on Friday he was “encouraging founders/companies to donate shares for the direct benefit of all citizens” and that this could filter through to Americans via a previously established plan for the Trump administration to put $1,000 in an investment account for every child born between 2025 and 2028.
The White House declined to elaborate on the plans, directing the FT to Trump’s comments.
Who is involved?
OpenAI, which has a philanthropic arm sitting on more than $200bn in largely undisbursed funds, has floated the idea of giving the government a stake in the company with administration officials in recent months, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
In a paper published in April, OpenAI proposed that policymakers and AI companies work together to seed a “Public Wealth Fund that provides every citizen — including those not invested in financial markets — with a stake in AI-driven economic growth”. Treasury secretary Scott Bessent has shown interest in similar proposals, according to a person familiar with the matter.
However, some White House officials and OpenAI rivals, including Anthropic, were caught by surprise by Trump’s Friday announcement. Altman had no plans to be in Washington next week, according to a person close to the discussions, despite Trump announcing a White House meeting with AI bosses for the coming week.
A person close to Anthropic, which the US government has designated as a “supply-chain risk”, said the company was not having conversations with the administration about providing equity to the government.
Why is this happening now?
The idea of public ownership of AI companies had been gaining traction on the progressive left for some weeks and was supercharged by an intervention from Sanders, the Vermont senator, in the past few days. Sanders proposed a one-off 50 per cent tax raid on AI labs.
His proposal has won qualified support from some on the populist right, including Bannon, Trump’s former chief of staff, who has long railed against the power of AI companies. Strategists from the Democratic and Republican parties are simultaneously grappling with how to appease voters increasingly worried about the threat AI poses to jobs ahead of November’s elections.
OpenAI’s Altman was in Washington this week, where he met Sanders and other lawmakers from both political parties. He did not discuss these proposals with Trump this week. His company, valued at close to $1tn, is likely to go public soon, while Anthropic and Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which owns xAI, are also racing to the public markets.
Is there any precedent?
The Trump administration has broken with economic orthodoxy by aggressively pursuing equity stakes in key sectors as part of an America First industrial strategy. Last year, it spent $9bn taking a 10 per cent stake in Intel and has invested billions of dollars in rare-earths and quantum computing start-ups in exchange for stock.
There is no precedent, however, for the government taking a stake in lossmaking AI labs collectively worth trillions of dollars. Additionally, the Intel equity was bought using funds already appropriated by the Biden-era Chips Act. Buying a stake in leading AI companies, rather than accepting a donation, would be expensive and probably require approval from Congress.
Will there be a backlash?
The initial response from pro-business Republicans and AI investors has been muted. In a post before Trump’s comments, billionaire Silicon Valley investor and White House adviser David Sacks warned against the government assuming “direct ownership and control” of AI companies — a post that was endorsed by Republican senator Ted Cruz.
If the Trump administration did go for equity stakes in leading labs, the backlash could be more widespread, said Samuel Hammond, director of AI policy at the pro-tech Foundation for American Innovation, with protests from investors and companies that were not cut in on the deal.
“Even if taking partial ownership of frontier AI companies can make sense on paper, in practice it’s a recipe for political favouritism and corruption,” he added.
Sacks, who was previously Trump’s AI tsar and was one of the most accelerationist voices in the administration, left his role this year. His lieutenant Sriram Krishnan announced on Saturday that he would be leaving the Trump administration at the end of this month.