Overview
- President Donald Trump told reporters the administration is exploring having the federal government take equity in AI firms and plans meetings with major AI executives to discuss the idea.
- News reporting cites unnamed sources who say White House officials have privately discussed voluntary transfers of shares with tech leaders, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
- Key legal and practical questions remain unresolved, including whether the government could compel equity transfers, how large any stake would be, and how returns would be handled for the public.
- Sen. Bernie Sanders has separately proposed a far larger plan to give the government 50% ownership of big AI companies by a one-time tax, creating an unusual cross-ideological overlap on the concept.
- The proposal builds on this administration’s recent equity moves in other industries and arrives alongside a new executive order asking AI developers to give agencies limited pre-release access to frontier models for cybersecurity review.