For the second time in a week, President Trump said Americans could get rich by sharing in the wealth from artificial intelligence companies.
In the Oval Office on Wednesday, Mr. Trump said that he would soon host a meeting with the top “12 or 15 executives” in the A.I. industry to discuss the idea of companies “giving back something to the public.” He added, “If we do that, the public will become very rich.”
The comments built on Mr. Trump’s remarks on Friday when he was first asked about the U.S. government acquiring stakes in A.I. companies. He said then that he wanted to meet with the companies to discuss providing the United States with stakes in their business, which “could be given to the American public.”
Though it’s unclear how such an arrangement would work and when such a meeting would take place, Mr. Trump has turned up the temperature on a hot topic in Washington and Silicon Valley as the tech industry reckons with a growing backlash against A.I.
This month, Bernie Sanders, the progressive senator from Vermont, proposed that the federal government levy a one-time, 50 percent tax on A.I. companies that would be paid in stock. His rationale was that the technology was built on Americans’ collective intelligence — songs, computer code, scientific research, videos and more — so everyone should share in the wealth it creates.
Silicon Valley appears to be on the verge of a new generation of wealth creation thanks to A.I. But this boom could come with a big downside: Many in the industry worry it will destroy the jobs of white collar workers, ranging from highly paid software programmers to back-office accountants.
The risks of mass layoffs have led A.I. executives to float a series of unusual ideas that would relieve pressure on the companies responsible for those job losses. One of those ideas was to give Americans equity in their businesses, so that everyday people could share their wealth.
The idea has taken on new urgency as public opposition to A.I. swells. Anxieties about job cuts, soaring energy prices and social disruptions have led people across the political spectrum to rally against the technology. In a March Quinnipiac University poll of American adults, 55 percent said they viewed A.I. as a force for harm rather than good. And some lawmakers increasingly worry that tech companies in general are growing too powerful.
This year, OpenAI and Anthropic, the leading A.I. start-ups that are each worth nearly $1 trillion and could have initial public offerings this year, have proposed creating public funds that would redistribute some of their wealth in the case of mass layoffs. One way to do that would be through a sovereign wealth fund, or government-run investment fund, that holds stakes in their businesses and distributes dividends.
“The notion that the government should be a partner in new technology is not new but the idea that the government and American citizens should have equity is a radical departure from the free markets approach of the world,” said David Yoffie, a professor at Harvard Business School.
In a 14-page paper Anthropic released on Wednesday, it said it wasn’t “yet ready to advocate specific policies for this scenario” but suggested lawmakers evaluate a few options, including a so-called universal basic income.
(The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft in 2023, claiming copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. The two companies have denied those claims.)
Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, first publicly floated the idea of giving people stock in a 2021 blog post. Mr. Altman described a future when A.I. would render jobs largely meaningless. Rather than tax labor, as the government does today, he proposed a new system where A.I. companies are taxed on their market value and forced to pay the government in stock, so that “all citizens over 18 would get an annual distribution, in dollars and company shares.”
During a visit to Washington in January 2025, Mr. Altman floated the idea directly with Mr. Trump, suggesting OpenAI would donate shares in its business to seed a government investment fund for A.I., three people familiar with those confidential conversations said. In the months that followed, other OpenAI executives raised it with administration officials, who dismissed it as a bid by the company to raise money.
Last week, Mr. Altman returned to Washington to push a new plan. OpenAI had released a 13-page policy paper comparing A.I. to the Industrial Revolution and calling on lawmakers to “respond to technological upheaval with ambition.” It proposed a “Public Wealth fund that provides every citizen — including those not invested in financial markets — with a stake in A.I.-driven economic growth.”
Mr. Altman visited the White House but didn’t raise the idea directly with Mr. Trump, two of the people said. He also raised the concept of a sovereign wealth fund with Mr. Sanders, who said Mr. Altman objected to the idea of giving the American people 50 percent of equity.
After Mr. Altman’s visit, Mr. Trump publicly mused about the idea of acquiring equity in A.I. companies. Government discussions over those stakes have been extremely preliminary, with some current and former government officials saying they were unaware of any real plan or vehicle to acquire stock.
The companies have yet to receive an invitation from the White House to meet with Mr. Trump about the topic, said people close to the companies who spoke anonymously because of the sensitivity of the topic.
Behind Mr. Trump’s idea appears to be one animating idea: The president likes owning equity in businesses.
In less than a year, the Trump administration has snapped up ownership shares in more than 20 companies, an unusual practice that is reshaping the relationship between the government and the private sector.
The government’s growing portfolio involves companies in steel, minerals, nuclear energy, semiconductors and other fields, including prominent firms like Intel, U.S. Steel and Westinghouse. Some of the deals are preliminary and not all have been finalized.
More than half a dozen of the companies are involved in mining or the production of rare earth magnets, a sector the United States has been trying to quickly build up after China introduced export curbs last year. Another nine of the companies are involved in quantum computing, an emerging technology the United States would like to dominate.
It’s not clear what exact approach the administration would take with A.I. companies, but the proposals appear to involve the government being given the stakes rather than paying for them.
One possibility would be for the shares to go to new investment accounts known as the Trump accounts, which were created through last year’s tax bill. Brad Gerstner, the founder of Altimeter Capital Management, which invested in Anthropic and OpenAI and has worked with the administration on investment accounts, said on social media that the shares should be held by citizens through their Trump accounts or in a pooled trust that will be divided among people in the future.
“I don’t trust shares in the hands of some future politicians that can coerce or liquidate & spend on whatever their political beliefs,” he wrote on social media.
Aaron Bartnick, a former White House technology official in the Biden administration, said he was not aware of any existing legal mechanism that would allow the government to accept such a gift. The stock, he added, is “incredibly valuable.”
“These companies are not typically in the business of giving it away for free,” he said. “So it begs the question: What do they feel they are getting in return?”
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