Sam Altman thinks the best way to share the benefits of artificial intelligence is to give the public a literal financial stake in the company building it. Not through tokens, not through universal basic income, but through good old-fashioned equity.
The OpenAI CEO has been pushing what the company calls a “Public Wealth Fund,” a proposal outlined in OpenAI’s April 2026 policy document titled “Industrial Policy for the Intelligence Age.” The concept is straightforward in theory and wildly ambitious in practice: give every US citizen a slice of AI-driven economic growth through diversified investments in AI companies and the businesses adopting their tools, then distribute the returns directly to the public.
OpenAI confidentially filed for a US IPO in June 2026, with projections targeting a valuation of up to $1 trillion. Altman has reportedly been in discussions with the Trump administration about the US government taking an equity position in OpenAI. The idea is that government-held shares could help seed the Public Wealth Fund, creating a mechanism through which AI wealth flows to taxpayers rather than concentrating among a handful of Silicon Valley insiders and institutional investors.
