OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has floated the idea that the United States government should become a stockholder in artificial intelligence companies. Yes, actually own shares of the thriving major AI companies!
Of course, it is not without precedent that the feds assume partial ownership of private companies. Benjamin D. Connard of Carnegie Investments reports that recent federal holdings have included the nearly $9 billion investment in Intel to boost its chip-making efforts, a 15 percent share of NVIDIA and Advanced Micro Devices chip sales to China to help keep China dependent on U.S. technologies, and the Pentagon’s $400 million equity stake in MP Materials, a rare-earth miner.
These recent investments differ from the massive auto industry and bank bailouts in the past—those were to distressed companies on the verge of collapse whose failure threatened the entire U.S. economy and differ from a stake in the strategically important computer chip and rare-earth resource sectors. The move suggested by Altman in the contemporary technology market could build a national AI investment vehicle or sovereign wealth fund. That is new and would take congressional action.
Altman’s concept is that companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta and other leaders in the field would share 5 percent of their valuation with the American public through the U.S. government. Russell Brandom, writing in TechCrunch, explained the ties to the American people:
