OpenAI has floated handing the U.S. government a 5% ownership stake and wants rival American AI developers to offer Washington the same, amid political pressure over the risks of advanced models and public anger that ordinary Americans see little of the sector’s wealth, according to the Financial Times. Sam Altman has pitched the plan to Trump, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, with the 5% flowing into a fund patterned after Alaska’s Permanent Fund, which distributes yearly oil-revenue dividends to the state’s residents. Washington holding a stake would put OpenAI among a widening set of firms the U.S. government now co-owns, after it took roughly 10% of Intel and 15% of MP Materials last year, as both OpenAI and Anthropic work to reduce regulatory uncertainty before their planned IPOs.
