President Donald Trump said on June 5 that his administration is actively considering taking an equity stake in leading artificial intelligence companies. The idea, floated aboard Air Force One, would effectively make the US government a shareholder in some of the most valuable private companies on Earth.
A White House meeting with executives from major AI firms is planned for the week of June 8. The guest list reportedly includes representatives from the companies that have come to define the current AI arms race: OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Google, and Microsoft.
The Intel playbook
The US government previously acquired a 10% stake in Intel, a deal that correlated with the chipmaker’s stock price roughly doubling. The administration has held stakes in approximately 10 to 20 companies, primarily in the semiconductor and tech sectors.
Discussions between the White House and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman about a potential government investment reportedly began as early as 2025. Those conversations centered on public wealth-sharing mechanisms, essentially finding ways to ensure that the economic windfall from AI doesn’t exclusively benefit Silicon Valley insiders and their venture backers.
