OpenAI is in early talks with the Trump administration about handing the federal government a 5% stake in the company, CNN reported July 2.
The proposal, still described as conceptual, would also ask other leading U.S. artificial intelligence companies to give the government a similar equity share, according to the Financial Times report cited by CNN. It is unclear which other firms might be included or whether they would agree to the arrangement.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has argued the structure would let the public share in AI’s financial upside. A 5% stake in OpenAI would be worth about $42.6 billion, based on the company’s March funding round, which valued OpenAI at $852 billion.
President Donald Trump said in June that he planned to meet with top AI executives about giving the public a stake in their companies, and the White House has been weighing partnership options with the industry. Neither OpenAI nor the White House immediately responded to CNN’s request for comment.
The talks come as Washington intensifies scrutiny of frontier AI models. OpenAI and Anthropic, the maker of Claude AI, have both had upcoming model releases delayed by government review. Anthropic said June 30 that the Commerce Department had lifted export controls on its Mythos and Fable models, restoring access for more than 100 institutions after a shutdown tied to jailbreak concerns.
For health system executives, the stake proposal lands as OpenAI deepens its healthcare push. Since January, the company has rolled out ChatGPT Health, a suite of tools called OpenAI for Healthcare for hospitals and health systems, a free clinician-facing tool called ChatGPT for Clinicians, and GPT-Rosalind, a model for biology and drug discovery research. OpenAI also acquired health data startup Torch for $60 million and published a policy blueprint calling for expanded clinician use of AI and updated regulatory pathways for AI-supported care.
Any deal involving a government equity stake would likely require an act of Congress, the Financial Times reported. Both OpenAI and Anthropic are separately preparing for stock market listings, a step that would open their shares to public investors for the first time.
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