OpenAI Weighs $43bn White House Stake

OpenAI is weighing whether to give the US government a 5 percent equity stake worth roughly $43 billion as part of a broader push to deepen ties with the Trump administration ahead of a planned public listing.

Talks Tied to a Looming $1tn Listing

Chief executive Sam Altman has floated the arrangement in conversations with the White House, according to reporting from the Financial Times, as OpenAI prepares for a stock market debut in New York that could value the company at $1 trillion. The company's current valuation stands at $852 billion, which is the basis for the $43 billion figure attached to a 5 percent slice. President Trump has spoken favorably about the concept of the government holding equity in leading AI firms, telling reporters last month that turning taxpayers into partners in the technology would be a "beautiful thing" and would "make them rich."

Precedent From the Intel Stake

The administration already has a template for this kind of arrangement. Washington took a 10 percent position in chipmaker Intel (INTC) last year, a stake initially worth about $9 billion that Trump now says has climbed past $60 billion in value. That paper gain has been cited repeatedly by administration officials as evidence that direct government ownership in strategic tech companies can pay off for the public, and it appears to be shaping how officials are approaching OpenAI.

Competing Ideas for Where the Shares Would Sit

There is no consensus yet on the mechanics. Vice President JD Vance has indicated Trump prefers routing any AI stakes through a sovereign wealth fund, while other administration figures have floated placing shares inside "Trump accounts," the investment vehicles being created for American children. Altman himself has previously pitched a public wealth fund structure that would hold positions in AI companies including OpenAI. On the political left, Senator Bernie Sanders has argued the public should be entitled to a far larger 50 percent stake in AI companies, a marker that underscores how contested the ownership question has become.

A Shift From Hands Off to Hands On

The discussions come against a backdrop of the White House moving from a largely deregulatory posture on AI to a more interventionist one. Regulators have blocked the release of Anthropic's most powerful systems and pushed OpenAI to restrict access to its newest models, moves that coincide with intensifying competition from Chinese AI developers. Anthropic, for its part, has proposed a different mechanism altogether: special taxes on the AI sector that would fund a "digital dividend" paid out to the public rather than direct equity stakes.

The equity stake proposal also reflects mounting political pressure over AI's disruption of labor markets and the rapid buildout of data centers across the country, concerns that have made the idea of taxpayers capturing a direct financial upside politically attractive to both parties, even as they disagree sharply on scale and structure. OpenAI was approached for comment on the reported discussions.