OpenAI proposes giving the US government a 5% stake in the company

The proposal

OpenAI is in early, conceptual talks to give the US government roughly a 5% equity stake, according to a Financial Times report published on July 2, 2026 and echoed the same day by Bloomberg, CNBC and Forbes. At the company's roughly $852 billion valuation, reached after a nearly $122 billion round closed in March 2026, a 5% stake would be worth about $42.6 billion.

Inspired by Alaska's oil wealth fund

According to Bloomberg, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman described the idea as a fair way to share AI's gains with the public, drawing a direct comparison to Alaska's oil wealth fund, which distributes part of the state's oil revenue directly to residents.

Other AI companies could join the same fund

The proposal, still at an early stage, envisions other major US AI labs also contributing equity to a similar public fund, according to CNBC, though any implementation along these lines would likely require action from the US Congress.

The backdrop: political pressure and an IPO in the works

The move comes as OpenAI has already confidentially filed paperwork for a stock market listing, and faces growing political pressure over AI's social impact, according to Forbes and Coindesk. Giving a stake to the government, even a small one relative to the company's total value, would work as a public gesture that the sector's massive gains are not concentrated solely among private investors.

Why it matters for those building on OpenAI's models

For Brazilian companies relying on the OpenAI API or products like ChatGPT Enterprise in their automation workflows, the episode is one more sign that the largest AI labs are becoming increasingly entangled with governments, which could translate, over the medium term, into new governance rules, transparency requirements, or even access restrictions, in the same spirit as Anthropic's export control episode over Fable 5 and Mythos 5 back in June.