OpenAI Proposes Giving the US Government a 5% Stake

OpenAI is reportedly in talks to give the US government a 5% stake, worth about $42.6 billion at its $852 billion valuation, as part of a broader plan for Washington to hold 5% of each leading US AI company.

Technology

uristocrat

July 2, 2026 1 min read

OpenAI Proposes Giving the US Government a 5% Stake — OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Key Points

OpenAI is in talks to give the US government a 5% stake, per the Financial Times.
At OpenAI's $852 billion valuation, 5% is worth about $42.6 billion.
The plan envisions Washington holding 5% of each leading US AI developer.
Talks involved Trump, Commerce Secretary Lutnick, and Treasury Secretary Bessent.

OpenAI is in talks to hand the US government a 5% stake in the company, according to a Financial Times report — a holding worth roughly $42.6 billion in the maker of ChatGPT, and, if the idea is extended as proposed, a government ownership position in every major American AI lab.

Sam Altman's pitch envisions Washington holding 5% of each leading US AI developer — Anthropic, Google, and Meta among them — through a sovereign-wealth-fund-style vehicle, so the public shares in the industry's financial upside. The discussions were held with President Trump, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and follow more than a year of on-and-off talks that began when Altman first floated the concept in early 2025. No party has agreed to anything yet.

The $42.6 billion figure comes straight off OpenAI's $852 billion valuation from its March funding round — a number that makes even a single-digit percentage a sovereign-scale asset.

The read: this is Altman trying to convert political exposure into alignment. OpenAI has spent 2026 absorbing pressure from Washington — the administration gated GPT-5.6 to about 20 approved partners, and a coalition of state attorneys general subpoenaed the company over data and minors. Handing the government equity reframes the relationship from adversary to shareholder, and hedges against the regulation that is coming for AI: better to have the regulator holding your stock. The open question is whether Washington actually wants to own a slice of the most scrutinized companies in technology.

That scrutiny only sharpened when a State Department presentation used an OpenAI-watermarked map that mislabeled every African country it showed, at the AIDS 2026 conference weeks later.

Source: CNBC, CNN