The Financial Times reported on Thursday that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is in talks with President Trump to give the US government a 5% stake in the company.
Altman has discussed a version of this wealth-sharing idea for years. He proposed a broader scheme in 2021 where any company above a certain valuation would pay 2.5% of its market value into a fund for American disbursements. This year, OpenAI outlined a narrower version similar to the current negotiations. The concept has broad political appeal, with Senator Bernie Sanders proposing a 50% stake for Americans in top AI firms.
The logic for recipients is twofold. AI models train on human work like books, movies and art, yet creators rarely receive payment. A free equity stake acts as belated compensation. The payout also aims to ease anxiety about a potential labour market collapse by providing a financial safety net, though economists dispute the severity of job losses.
The size of that safety net depends on the details, which remain sparse. If the government distributed a 5% stake directly to Americans after OpenAI’s March funding round, the value would be around $42.6 billion based on an $852 billion valuation. Splitting that among roughly 133 million households gives each person about $320 in equity. The company reportedly delays an IPO until it reaches a $1 trillion valuation, a difficult goal given heavy data centre spending and no profit yet. Alternatively, a fund could grow and share returns later, potentially delivering larger payouts if AI firms ever turn a sustainable profit.
If the dividend materialises, tech companies might gain improved public opinion. A majority of Americans do not trust companies to use AI responsibly and oppose building data centres in their area. Half of the population is more concerned than excited about AI creeping into daily life.
The bigger prize for OpenAI may be political favour. The Trump administration values tech deals, such as its stake in Intel and its share of Nvidia sales to China. Staying on the administration’s good side is essential for AI firms right now, following the recent feud involving Anthropic. Alignment could prevent models from being deemed a supply chain risk or secure White House assistance against Chinese rivals.
These plans currently function more as a story than policy. Altman has pitched this idea for five years and reportedly approached President Trump soon after he took office, yet little indicates a concrete plan is forming. The more ambitious proposal from Sanders is even less likely to gain traction.
What these plans reveal is how much the future of AI remains up for debate. Altman drew inspiration from the Alaska Permanent Fund, established in the 1970s to share oil profits with Alaskans. That fund relied on two premises: oil is a shared resource and it will eventually run out. Altman seems to concede the first claim about AI but rejects the second, having promised the technology will generate extraordinary wealth for decades. Whether Americans receive a check is secondary; the proposal’s real purpose may be to convince them the AI boom is large enough to share.
What it means
For people making things, the promise of a dividend is a rhetorical shield rather than an immediate income stream. It attempts to frame AI development as a collective benefit to reduce resistance to data centres and model deployment. Until a fund structure exists, creators should treat the $320 figure as hypothetical and focus on the practical reality that their work trains models without direct compensation.
