OpenAI has proposed granting the US government a 5 percent equity stake in early discussions with the Trump administration, a move that comes as Washington tightens its oversight of advanced artificial intelligence models. The company behind ChatGPT raised the idea while navigating a more demanding political environment ahead of a possible public listing, the Financial Times reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.
A Model Borrowed from Alaska
OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman argued that offering the public a direct financial interest in the company would be the most effective way to distribute the economic rewards of the booming AI industry, according to the report. The Financial Times noted that Altman modeled the proposal on Alaska’s Permanent Fund, a state-owned investment vehicle that distributes a portion of oil revenues to residents. The suggestion signals a strategic effort by the company to get ahead of an incoming regulatory wave.
The calculus, as described by the report, is to offer Washington a direct financial stake in the industry’s growth before policymakers impose their own terms. The proposal arrives weeks after OpenAI confirmed it had confidentially submitted an S-1 registration statement for a US initial public offering, joining Anthropic in preparing for a Wall Street debut this year.
It also comes as the federal government assumes a more active role in overseeing advanced AI models. It remains unclear whether other leading US AI companies such as Anthropic, Google and Meta would support the idea of a similar government stake.
Navigating a Shifting Regulatory Landscape
The broader stakes are significant. With a potential IPO on the horizon and federal oversight intensifying, OpenAI is navigating a political environment in which the rules of the game are still being written.
The Trump administration’s response to the equity stake proposal will serve as a key signal for how Washington intends to shape the future of the AI sector. OpenAI’s overture reflects an effort to influence that outcome before policies harden. The company’s evolution from a nonprofit research organization to a commercial entity has been marked by both rapid growth and internal turbulence.
OpenAI was founded in 2015 as a nonprofit by Sam Altman and Elon Musk, among others, with the mission of ensuring that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. To attract larger amounts of capital for its research, the organization later restructured to include a for-profit arm.
Microsoft provided substantial investment along with cloud computing resources to support that growth. The release of ChatGPT in 2022 triggered a global surge in interest in generative AI, thrusting OpenAI into the public spotlight and accelerating commercial demand. However, recent years have brought friction both inside and outside the company.
The board briefly removed Altman as chief executive in 2023 before reinstating him. Throughout 2024, many safety researchers left the organization.
Meanwhile, authors and media firms filed lawsuits alleging copyright infringement related to the data used to train the company’s AI models.
Implications for Oversight and Public Benefit
These developments highlight a persistent tension between rapid commercial growth and safety oversight. As OpenAI moves toward a public listing, its relationship with the government will help determine how artificial intelligence is regulated in the United States.
The outcome of that relationship will also affect how the economic gains of the industry are distributed among the public. The equity stake proposal, if adopted, would represent a novel mechanism for ensuring that taxpayers share directly in the financial upside of AI development.
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