OpenAI floats giving Trump administration 5 percent cut of AI boom

Robert Hart is a London-based reporter at The Verge covering all things AI and a Senior Tarbell Fellow. Previously, he wrote about health, science and tech for Forbes.

OpenAI has floated giving the US government a 5 percent ownership stake as a way of easing tensions with the Trump administration and blunting mounting public backlash against AI, according to the Financial Times.

CEO Sam Altman argued that giving the public a financial interest in the company would be the best way to share the upside of AI, the FT reported, citing two unnamed people familiar with the talks. He’s said to have first pitched the idea to Trump early last year.

Altman reportedly suggested the 5 percent figure. Based on OpenAI’s latest funding round, which ended with the company valued at $852 billion, that stake would be worth roughly $42.6 billion.

The discussions are reportedly still in...

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