Sam Altman has put an unusual offer on the table: give 5% of OpenAI to a US sovereign wealth fund. The Financial Times broke the story Thursday, citing two people familiar with the discussions. At OpenAI's $852 billion valuation — the result of a record funding round closed in March — that's roughly $42.6 billion.
The talks have been running for over a year. The stated rationale is to "secure good relations with the administration and address political blowback," per FT's sources. The timing is pointed: OpenAI filed its IPO paperwork in May, and heading into a public offering while under congressional scrutiny is a delicate position. Trump said in June he had discussed ideas where "pieces could be given to the American public."
Altman's proposal isn't framed as a solo move. The model he envisions would have Anthropic, Google, and Meta each contributing similar stakes to the same fund. The mechanics remain undefined — sources told the FT that any formal implementation would almost certainly need congressional approval, making the timeline unpredictable.
OpenAI has been building toward this publicly. Its April white paper, "Industrial Policy for the Intelligence Age," proposed a government-backed AI investment fund that would distribute returns directly to citizens. The sovereign wealth fund pitch is that framework applied to equity. Senator Bernie Sanders went further in June with a bill demanding a one-time 50% tax on AI company stock — a blunter instrument aimed at the same redistribution goal.
The talks are preliminary and the outcome far from certain. But the signal itself is significant: the world's most valuable AI company is volunteering a multi-billion-dollar stake to the US government before it goes public, and pitching the entire sector to follow.
