OpenAI has opened preliminary talks with the Trump administration about ceding a roughly 5 percent equity interest to the federal government, worth approximately $42.6 billion at the company’s $852 billion post-money valuation set in March, according to the Financial Times. The proposal, which the FT describes as “conceptual,” would extend beyond OpenAI: Anthropic, Google, and Meta would each contribute a 5 percent stake to a sovereign investment vehicle modeled on the Alaska Permanent Fund, the state corporation that converts oil revenue into dividends for residents.

The structure would require an act of Congress. Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, has personally raised the concept with President Trump, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Senator Bernie Sanders, a bipartisan target list that reads less like a lobbying strategy than an acknowledgment of the political coalition any such bill would need to survive.

Altman has been working this angle for a while. He first pitched a version of the concept to the administration in early 2025, and in April OpenAI publicly argued for a public wealth fund that would give every citizen a stake in A.I.-driven growth, including those not invested in financial markets. Anthropic has separately floated what it calls a “digital dividend,” funded by taxes on the sector; a person familiar with the matter told CNBC that Anthropic and the administration haven’t discussed a government stake.

The offer arrives at a moment when Washington’s operational grip on the labs is already visible. Last week the administration asked OpenAI to delay the wide release of GPT-5.6. Days later, Anthropic suspended access to its most advanced models, including Fable 5, under an export-control directive aimed at keeping the technology out of the hands of foreign nationals. On Tuesday, the government lifted those curbs. Read in sequence, the events describe a regulatory relationship that already functions like ownership without the paperwork.

There’s precedent for the paperwork itself. Last year the Trump administration took roughly a 10 percent stake in Intel and 15 percent in MP Materials, converting federal grants into equity across the semiconductor and critical-mineral supply chains. A 5 percent claim on the frontier A.I. sector is a larger conceptual leap but a smaller one in method. Both OpenAI and Anthropic are preparing IPOs that some investors believe could value each above $1 trillion, which means Altman is offering, in effect, to pre-sell the taxpayer a call option on the sector he’s racing to define.

OpenAI declined to comment. The White House didn’t respond to requests for comment.

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