OpenAI is reportedly considering to give a five percent company stake to the Trump administration. Given OpenAI’s pre-IPO valuation of $852 billion, a five percent company share would be worth $42.6 billion. In exchange, the AI company is batting for a public wealth fund through which the profits generated through AI could be put towards public welfare.
Altman is presently embroiled in a high-stakes negotiation with the White House to finalize the size of the stake, FT reported citing sources familiar with the matter.
The discussions between OpenAI and the White House come amid rising U.S. national security concerns over Chinese open-source AI models.
The White House is essentially exploring if it can get an internal influence over major domestic AI firms. President Donald Trump’s administration is now considering striking similar equity deals with companies like Anthropic, Meta, and Google.
Earlier in June, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reached Washington to meet with U.S. lawmakers and discuss the next steps in AI as a technology and how best to regulate it. At the time, the reports of White House looking to purchase a stake in OpenAI had started to circulate in the media.
With President Trump repeatedly calling for national independence and sovereignty in advanced technologies like AI, Altman is using that momentum to pitch his Public Wealth Fund. The AI mogul argues the fund could provide tangible, financial proof to all Americans that AI can serve the public good.
President Trump had expressed major optimisim around the White House acquiring stakes in AI firms. In June he told the reporters that, “There’s something very interesting about it, where it almost becomes a partnership with the American public. It’s like you make them [partners] in this revolution. It would be a beautiful thing. … It would make ’em rich.”
As of now, more details on the ongoing talks between the White House and OpenAI remain unclear for now.
Meanwhile, it is not new for the White House to acquire stakes in tech firms. The U.S. government holds a 10 percent stake in Intel after it invested a whopping $8.9 billion in the chipmaker’s common stock last year in August.
For now, the White House is in advanced talks with AI companies like to fuel the creation of voluntary AI model standards for new frontier releases.
