Trump mulls U.S. stake in AI firms, dividend for Americans

Donald Trump has turned a loose idea about sharing AI riches into a sharper question in Washington: if the federal government takes a stake in leading AI firms, what exactly would that mean? On June 5, Trump said his team was looking into the idea of AI companies giving the American public a stake in their firms and said he planned to meet AI executives as soon as next week. By June 10, he said he expected top AI companies to agree to “giving back” to the public.

The broad outline under discussion is more than symbolism. Senior U.S. officials have held preliminary talks with major AI companies about the government acquiring shares, and Reuters described the concept as a voluntary arrangement in which firms could cede equity to Washington. One version under consideration would channel any earnings from government-held shares into public benefit, including possible dividend payments to American households. That would make the U.S. government something closer to an owner than a traditional referee, with the payoff flowing directly to citizens rather than into the Treasury by default.

OpenAI has emerged as the center of the discussion. CNBC reported that OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and the White House have been in ongoing talks about a possible government stake in the company, with conversations stretching back more than a year and first raised by Altman in 2025. Anthropic was reported not to be part of the government-share conversations. The timing matters: OpenAI and Anthropic are both preparing for what could be among the largest initial public offerings ever recorded, which would make any ownership plan unusually sensitive for investors and competitors alike.

The policy debate also shows how quickly the politics of AI wealth are shifting. Senator Bernie Sanders proposed a one-time 50 percent stock levy on leading AI companies, including OpenAI, Anthropic and xAI, to create a sovereign wealth fund for Americans. That puts Trump and Sanders on opposite sides of the ideological spectrum, yet both are converging on the same basic premise: the public should capture some share of the value AI firms are creating.

Trump’s interest is not without precedent. In 2025, he backed a 10 percent U.S. government stake in Intel, a move he framed as a way to strengthen the company and domestic chip manufacturing. That deal now looms over the AI talks as a possible model for how the government could seek ownership in strategically important private firms. The deeper issue is whether Washington wants a dividend stream, a strategic foothold, or both, and whether the next phase of AI policy will treat public ownership as redistribution or leverage.