Senior U.S. officials have held preliminary discussions with major artificial intelligence companies about the potential for the federal government to acquire some shares in their firms, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, has discussed the idea with senior Trump administration officials periodically since the president began his second term, said two of the sources, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect private deliberations. Altman first pitched the concept directly to President Donald Trump in a conversation in early 2025, and has discussed it again with senior administration officials in recent weeks as a way to more broadly distribute the economic benefits of AI to the public, they said.
While planning is ongoing and details are in flux, discussions have centered on having the firms voluntarily cede the shares to the government, the people said. The returns on the investment could then be directed to public purposes, one of the people said, such as distributing a dividend payment to all American households.