Christina Shaw
OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is weighing an offer to give the US government a 5 percent equity stake worth roughly $43 billion as it courts the Trump administration ahead of a planned stock market listing that could value the firm at $1 trillion.
Sam Altman, OpenAI's chief executive, raised the proposal in recent talks with the White House, according to reporting from the Financial Times. The idea surfaces as President Trump has publicly floated the notion of the federal government taking equity positions in major artificial intelligence firms, framing it as a way to let ordinary Americans share in the industry's gains rather than watch from the sidelines while valuations soar.
The Arithmetic Behind a $43 Billion Stake
OpenAI is currently valued at $852 billion in private markets. A 5 percent slice at that valuation works out to roughly $43 billion, the figure now under discussion. But OpenAI is pushing for a $1 trillion valuation when it eventually lists shares in New York, which would make the same stake worth considerably more on paper. That gap between today's private valuation and the target listing price is central to why the timing of any government stake matters: locking in terms now, before a public offering, could mean the taxpayer captures upside that a later purchase would miss, or conversely locks in exposure to a valuation that has not yet been tested by public markets.
Trump has pointed to the Intel precedent as a model worth repeating. Washington took a 10 percent stake in the chipmaker last year when it was worth about $9 billion; that position is now valued at more than $60 billion, a return the president has cited repeatedly as evidence the approach can work.
Structure, Politics and the Sovereign Wealth Fund Question
How any OpenAI stake would actually be held remains unresolved. Vice President JD Vance has said Trump favors parking such holdings in a sovereign wealth fund, while other administration figures have floated routing shares into
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