--- title: "OpenAI Is Said to Float Giving the U.S. Government a 5% Stake" description: "OpenAI has floated giving the U.S. government a roughly 5% stake in the company — worth around $43 billion at its recent $852 billion valuation — as part of a proposal that would also cover other leading AI firms, the Financial Times reported. It would be a highly unusual arrangement: Washington taking equity in a private tech company outside a crisis." category: "Tech" category_url: https://boursel.com/category/tech author: "Marcus Feldman" published: 2026-07-02T08:44:00.000Z updated: 2026-07-02T08:44:00.000Z canonical: https://boursel.com/article/openai-is-said-to-float-giving-the-u-s-government-a-5-stake tags: ["openai", "ai", "us-government", "regulation", "sam-altman"] --- # OpenAI Is Said to Float Giving the U.S. Government a 5% Stake OpenAI has floated giving the U.S. government a roughly 5% stake in the company — worth around $43 billion at its recent $852 billion valuation — as part of a proposal that would also cover other leading AI firms, the Financial Times reported. It would be a highly unusual arrangement: Washington taking equity in a private tech company outside a crisis. In a sign of how tangled the relationship between artificial intelligence and the state has become, OpenAI has reportedly floated an idea few American companies ever would: letting the government own a piece of it. OpenAI has held early-stage discussions about giving the **U.S. government a roughly 5% stake**, the **Financial Times** reported, [as relayed by Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-02/openai-proposes-giving-the-us-government-a-5-stake-ft-says). At OpenAI's recent **$852 billion** valuation — reached in a funding round earlier this year — a 5% holding would be worth around **$43 billion**. Chief executive **Sam Altman** and other executives are said to have pitched a broader version in which Washington would hold **5% of each leading U.S. AI developer**, potentially including Anthropic, Google and Meta, though it's unclear whether the others would agree, [CNBC reported](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/02/openai-proposes-us-government-own-5percent-stake-to-address-political-blowback.html). Altman has discussed the idea with President Trump and with the Treasury and Commerce secretaries, per the reports. The talks are preliminary, and no deal has been struck. ## The idea, and the model behind it The concept floated is less a sale than a **grant of equity** to the public, structured to share AI's gains broadly. Reports liken it to Alaska's **Permanent Fund** — a state-owned fund seeded with oil revenue that pays annual dividends to residents. The pitch, in effect: if AI generates enormous wealth, give citizens a direct financial stake in it. (An **equity stake** is an ownership share in a company; owning 5% means owning 5% of the enterprise's value.) ## Why this is so unusual In the United States, the government almost never owns pieces of private companies. It has done so mainly in **emergencies** — most notably the 2008 financial crisis, when it took temporary stakes in banks and automakers to prevent collapse, then sold them. Standing government ownership of a thriving private firm cuts against a long American preference for keeping the state out of the boardroom, on the theory that it can distort competition, invite political meddling in business decisions, and create conflicts of interest — including for the same government that **regulates** the industry. That last point is the crux. OpenAI is under intense **political and regulatory pressure** in Washington — over AI safety, national security, and competition — and a government ownership stake would bind the company and the state together in unprecedented ways. Supporters frame it as sharing the upside of a transformative technology; skeptics see tangled incentives, with the government both **owning and policing** the most powerful AI firms. ## Why it matters For **investors and the tech industry**, even the discussion is striking: it signals that the AI boom has grown so large, and so entwined with national power, that once-unthinkable ownership structures are on the table. For **OpenAI**, a state stake could buy political goodwill and regulatory breathing room — but at the cost of independence and fresh conflict-of-interest questions. And for the **public**, the proposal reframes a live debate: who should capture the wealth if AI proves as economically transformative as its champions claim? Boursel takes no position and stresses this is an early, reported idea, not a done deal; the takeaway is that the line between **Big AI and the government** is blurring — and both sides are, apparently, willing to discuss erasing it further. ## Sources - [OpenAI proposes giving the US government a 5% stake, FT says](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-02/openai-proposes-giving-the-us-government-a-5-stake-ft-says) - [OpenAI proposes U.S. government own 5% stake to address political blowback](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/02/openai-proposes-us-government-own-5percent-stake-to-address-political-blowback.html)