By Courtney Rozen
WASHINGTON, June 22 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said he is exploring options to give the public a stake in leading AI companies, in response to concerns that individual Americans will not share in the sector’s expected profits.
Policymakers, companies and advocates have proposed several pathways for Trump’s idea, floated this month, of AI companies “giving back” to the public, including installing U.S. government representatives on company boards, targeted taxes on the industry and exchanging federal funding for equity stakes.
Any agreement to grant the government equity stakes could reshape federal revenues. AI firms OpenAI and Anthropic both confidentially filed for U.S. initial public offerings this month, with OpenAI targeting a valuation of up to $1 trillion, Reuters has reported.
Leading AI developers Anthropic, Google and OpenAI did not respond to requests for comment about the government taking stakes in the sector.
TAXES PAID IN STOCKU.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats, has proposed using the tax system to capture a share of AI-driven wealth, with large firms giving the government a 50% ownership stake and board representation.
“The American people should be able to stop what’s bad and benefit from the financial gains of AI,” Sanders said about his proposal.
The idea echoes a proposal by two law professors to impose a tax payable in stock rather than cash, effectively transferring equity to the government without requiring public investment. The approach would not give the government a controlling stake, said Jeremy Bearer-Friend, a professor at George Washington University Law School.
EQUITY IN EXCHANGE FOR PUBLIC FUNDING
Another model mirrors the deal with Intel, in which the government took a 10% stake in exchange for billions of dollars in funding to expand domestic manufacturing capacity.
The tech sector needs regular, huge injections of cash and over the past year has sought to raise vast sums to fund AI infrastructure. Government investment could form part of that funding.
Alphabet, the parent of Google DeepMind, said this month it would increase its equity offerings to $84.75 billion.
Free-market analysts warn against the government mimicking the Intel arrangement, saying it could distort incentives.
“It puts the government in the space where it’s no longer focused on ensuring the U.S. has the capacity it needs to protect the public interest and is more focused on ensuring that its investment pays off,” said Neil Chilson, a Republican who leads AI policy at the Abundance Institute.
OpenAI has discussed federal loan guarantees for chip plants with the government but has not pursued similar arrangements for data centers, CEO Sam Altman said in November.
PAYMENTS TO AMERICANSOpenAI in April proposed creating a “public wealth fund” to invest in AI companies and distribute proceeds to citizens, according to a company statement.
Anthropic said it is exploring a “digital dividend,” defined as payments to Americans funded by taxes on the AI sector.
The idea has parallels with the Alaska Permanent Fund, a state-owned corporation seeded with oil revenues to preserve the long-term value of the state’s natural resources. The fund provides annual dividends to residents and, in recent years, has also helped support Alaska’s budget. Proponents say a similar model could apply to AI, which relies heavily on publicly created data.
“The public infrastructure in the United States is a citizen domain,” said Joseph Blasi, who teaches corporate governance at Rutgers University. “It’s not something that a billionaire here or there or a trillionaire here or there can just grab.”
(Reporting by Courtney Rozen; Editing by William Mallard)
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