OpenAI proposes US government own 5% stake to address political blowback

OpenAI has proposed giving the U.S. government a 5 percent equity stake in the company, the Financial Times reported on July 2, 2026, according to multiple outlets. At OpenAI's $852 billion valuation set in its March 2026 funding round, a 5 percent holding would be worth roughly $42.6 billion. Chief executive Sam Altman has argued the stake would give the public a financial interest in artificial intelligence and share the upside of the technology more broadly, the FT reported. The structure being discussed involves a public wealth fund, a vehicle OpenAI outlined in an April 2026 policy paper that proposed pooling equity donations from AI companies. Under that framework, OpenAI would donate shares rather than sell them. The FT reported that other U.S. AI companies including Anthropic, Google and Meta were named as potentially participating, though none have commented publicly. The proposal remains an early-stage discussion, not a final deal. Neither the White House nor OpenAI has confirmed the specific terms on the record, the FT said, and no timeline has been given. A competing plan from Senator Bernie Sanders, the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, would impose a one-time 50 percent stock tax on large AI companies.