Trump eyes AI riches with government stakes in top firms

Technology Trump eyes AI riches with government stakes in top firms Comments: by Julia Shapero - 06/24/26 6:00 AM ET Comments: Link copied by Julia Shapero - 06/24/26 6:00 AM ET Comments: Link copied

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President Trump is considering a plan that would give the U.S. government direct stakes in leading AI companies, putting him in unusual alignment with some of his fiercest critics.

The president confirmed earlier this month he is considering “concepts where pieces could be given to the American public, where the American public essentially becomes a partner.”

But versions of this idea have also found support among the likes of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Anthropic and OpenAI, bringing together a surprising contingent as politicians and the AI industry alike grapple with the vast wealth the technology is expected to create.

Reports emerged in early June that the Trump administration was in preliminary talks with AI companies about taking equity stakes. When asked about this, Trump said he was set to meet with tech executives in the “near future” to discuss the idea.

“We’re talking about giving back something to the public,” he later added. “And if we do that, the public will become very rich, the people in our country, because that’s the kind of money we’re talking about. And I think they’ll do that, and I think it’ll make it very popular.”

The concept isn’t entirely novel for the president, who has taken stakes in more than 20 companies in his second term. Trump himself pointed to the nearly 10 percent stake the government took in Intel last August when discussing the possibility of equity in AI firms.

“With Trump … it’s about deals,” Tad DeHaven, a policy analyst on general economic issues for the Cato Institute, told The Hill. “This is government by dealmaking, government by transaction.”

“At the end of the day, that’s how the president views the world,” he added. “He is transactional, he is deal-based. And the purpose is here again, for whatever the White House says about taxpayer upside and supply strengthening supply chains, it’s really about the president exercising leverage, power and control.”

Trump’s approach is a notable shift in policy for Republicans, who have long advocated for the government to play a smaller role in private industry.

“I think Trump has been able to cut against his own party here and normalize it as a Republican effort,” said Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at Groundwork Collaborative. “And on the left, this has been a not uncommon tool or demand from progressives as a way to capture the upside for government investment.”

Sanders has also pursued a version of this idea, sometimes referred to as “universal basic capital.” He unveiled legislation last week to create an AI sovereign wealth fund by taking 50 percent stakes in major AI companies.

The senator estimated the fund would be worth about $7 trillion and would be able to provide annual direct payments to Americans of more than $1,000, arguing the public should get a share of the wealth generated by AI.

He acknowledged the overlap with Trump when rolling out the bill last Thursday.

“As you know, I’m no great fan of President Trump, but he’s a good politician,” Sanders told reporters. “And I think he senses that the American people are very nervous about this technology, and they want some of the benefits. He has been talking about that as well.”

The public has become increasingly wary of AI amid concerns about the data center buildout and potential job losses related to the technology.

In a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, 53 percent of Americans said they were concerned that someone in their household would lose a job due to AI. A May poll from Gallup also found that 71 percent of Americans opposed the construction of a data center in their community.

“It’s just the incentive in the political sphere, especially in the past 10 years, where we’ve seen the rise in populism on both the Democratic and Republican side,” DeHaven said. “Everybody’s looking for opportunities to bang the populist drum, and I can’t think of bigger, juicier target than these AI companies.”

The AI industry is also getting in on the conversation, with both OpenAI and Anthropic embracing versions of this idea.

In April, OpenAI called for the creation of a public wealth fund that would provide “every citizen—including those not invested in financial markets—with a stake in AI-driven economic growth.”

“While tax reforms help ensure governments can continue to fund essential programs, a Public Wealth Fund is designed to ensure that people directly share in the upside of that growth,” the ChatGPT creator said.

The push to spread the wealth generated by AI reflects the growing concern over how the sector might worsen inequality, particularly as it drives massive growth in public markets, where the typical American might not be as heavily invested as their wealthier counterparts.

Anthropic has also backed the idea of giving Americans a direct financial stake in the economy. This aligns the company with the Trump administration despite a somewhat contentious relationship between the two sides.

The AI firm suggested the government has already taken a step in this direction with the creation of childhood investment accounts known as Trump Accounts and called for the program to be made permanent and expanded toward universal coverage.

It also proposed expanding the mechanisms for funding these accounts, including through equity in AI companies.

Jacquez suggested “self-preservation” might be a motivation for the AI firms.

“They know if they do end up being profitable and end up getting the returns that they expect to their investment, it’s going to make a relatively small number of people extraordinarily wealthy,” he said. “And I think they see that that is probably not a recipe for social stability and social cohesion.”

Both OpenAI and Anthropic’s approaches have reportedly found traction with different factions in the Trump administration. According to Semafor, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has embraced the idea of using AI equity to fund Trump Accounts, while Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has an eye toward a sovereign wealth fund.

However, DeHaven warned that government stakes in major AI players could result in “regulatory capture” and ultimately hamper innovation in the industry.

“What that means is that the government controls to a much higher level OpenAI and Anthropic,” he said. “But that can come with benefits, and chief benefits amongst them is the tie between the government’s incentive to make sure they perform well, and that the government ‘makes money’ off the deal. But it’s awfully inhibitory with regard to innovation and competition.”

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