Trump Eyes Government Equity Stakes in AI Firms

President Donald Trump said Friday that his administration is exploring the possibility of the U.S. government taking direct equity stakes in major artificial intelligence companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI, effectively embracing a proposal championed by Sen. Bernie Sanders just days earlier. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump described the concept as creating a "partnership with the American public" and said he planned to meet with AI executives at the White House as soon as next week to discuss the framework. The discussions reportedly include tech giants ceding shares to the government, with returns on investment potentially delivering dividend payouts to citizens. The political moment gained momentum after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had been privately pitching the idea of a government ownership stake to administration officials well before Sanders went public with the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act on June 2. According to reports by Notus, confirmed by the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times, Altman outlined a formal proposal in April for a U.S. public wealth fund to give citizens a stake in AI-driven economic growth, and has since spoken directly with Sanders about overlapping frameworks. Trump had previously signed an executive order on June 2 asking AI developers to voluntarily submit their most capable models for government cybersecurity tests before public release, after abruptly cancelling a stronger directive in May following industry pushback. The proposal arrives amid mounting political pressure from Trump's own MAGA base, with Republican strategists monitoring polling showing growing voter concern about AI-related job losses. Palantir CEO Alex Karp warned this week that "the momentum is on the side of people who want to nationalize" AI frontier labs, cautioning tech executives against publicly linking AI to workforce reductions. Tech layoffs in 2026 have surpassed 142,000, while software developer employment for workers aged 22 to 25 has fallen roughly 20 percent from its 2024 peak. The White House move would represent the next step in what has become an unusually interventionist approach to the private sector: the Cato Institute estimates the administration already holds ownership stakes in roughly 20 companies spanning semiconductor, mineral, and quantum computing firms. Critics, including Trump's former AI czar David Sacks, have warned that such a move could accelerate "corporate-government fusion" and resemble systems in China rather than American free-market principles.