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OpenAI 'In Early Talks To Give 5% Stake To US Government' 114

Posted by BeauHD from the financial-stakes dept.
OpenAI is reportedly in early talks to give the U.S. government a 5% stake, potentially alongside similar contributions from other major AI companies. "Such a deal would help improve the industry's relations with the Trump administration and could help garner political support by sharing wealth generated by the AI boom with the public," reports The Guardian. From the report: [OpenAI CEO Sam Altman] and other OpenAI bosses have suggested that each of the biggest AI developers in the US should give 5% to their equity to an investment vehicle such as the Alaska Permanent Fund, a sovereign fund that invests US oil wealth into stocks and pays dividends to the state, the FT reported.

The talks are "conceptual" and in early stages, it said, and any deal could require an act of Congress to implement. Both OpenAI and Anthropic have previously suggested in policy papers that a public or sovereign wealth fund may be required in the future to distribute shares to the public. In April, OpenAI said that a "public wealth fund" could provide "every citizen -- including those not invested in financial markets -- with a stake in AI-driven economic growth." Further reading: Bernie Sanders Unveils $7 Trillion Plan To Give Americans Control of AI Industry
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OpenAI 'In Early Talks To Give 5% Stake To US Government' More

OpenAI 'In Early Talks To Give 5% Stake To US Government'

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  • Naked Graft (Score:5, Interesting)

    by crunchy_one ( 1047426 ) on Thursday July 02, 2026 @01:03PM (#66220058)
    I used to think that graft this naked could never happen, especially at the Federal level. Guess I was wrong.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I suppose the final insult was that they no longer bothered to lie convincingly.

    • Re:Naked Graft (Score:5, Insightful)

      by xxdelxx ( 551872 ) on Thursday July 02, 2026 @01:17PM (#66220086)
      There are South American banana republic dictators looking on in awe.

    • But think of the socialism! (Score:4, Funny)

      by shanen ( 462549 ) on Thursday July 02, 2026 @01:54PM (#66220158) Homepage Journal

      I agree with you, but I had to include the obligatory joke. The word has lost all meaning these days. Children? Graft? Socialism? Federal? Naked? Trust? Slashdot? No meaning anywhere. But let's think of the socialist children!

    • Donald Trump and Sam Altman (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Nicholas Grayhame ( 10502767 ) on Thursday July 02, 2026 @01:55PM (#66220162)

      a match made in hell

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Changing government to Kleptocracy and Kakistocracy tends to do that.

      That 5% is probably more than the real worth of OpenAI ...

      • They are now talking about delaying their IPO until next year after all...

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          I wonder why.

          • The reason is Ed Zitron has been making the rounds of business media lately pointing out that their (OpenAI, Anthropic) accounting doesn't add up at all. It's very enlightening to business types, who don't really understand our technical discussions about the mathematical limitations of LLMs, but understand very well when "profitability" is an accounting trick, and when sufficiently large markets simply don't exist for the implied returns from stratospheric valuations. The Emperor's New Clothes And All That

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by gweihir ( 88907 )

              Yep. Funny how that goes when "magical thinking" collides with reality and actually has to deliver. The real pathetic thing is, however, that all those business grads have still not learned or are unable to learn or accept that scientists and engineers can predict these things quite often and with good reliability. They have to test it out and see the profits failing to materialize. I think the problem is that business grads come with built-in high levels of arrogance, but rather low levels of actual skills

    • I feel like people who make comments like this have no concept of American history. Naked graft like this has happened, just as bad if not worse, many times in US history!

      Now, should we be concerned that we're moving backwards instead of forwards on corruption? Absolutely!

      But it's just flat out ignorant and counterproductive to pretend this level of government corruption has never occurred ... when US history is full of it. Please people, read some history, or else we really all are doomed to repeat it.

      • There has been others but I doubt it was never on this scale. No one really believes a politician will be truthful. It's just shocking when it's blatant. Trump might be the current issue but the fact he was elected in the first place is more telling. The two party system is broken, now we can pick between socialists and extremists on the right. We have been stuck picking two old farts for far too long. Which is the best of a bad bunch. Even when we had good Presidents congress sucked. We need better represe

      • You will not find any positive feedback to making historical claims here on /.! If you do not sufficiently give obedience to the socialist totalitarian worldview here, repeating the anti Trump incantations and accepting the holy shibboleths, you will be downloaded into oblivion for saying even the most obvious things.

    • curious.
      it is my ignorance.
      what other businesses do this

  • Isn't this called (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02, 2026 @01:18PM (#66220092)

    seizing the means of production?

    • No. You are getting confused by communism. This is fascism.

      When the government takes over industry, it's called communism. When industry takes over government, or collaborates closely with government, it's called fascism.

      • Technically its supposed to be the workers seizing the means of production for it to be communism. However in practice this rarely ends up whats happening.During spains brief flirtation with communism prior to getting smashed by Franco, the anarchist CNT-FAI controlled territory was doing this, and by all accounts it was a pretty great thing. But whe spanish communist party territories where just doing state control. But yeah authoritarian-marxist parties historically have not shown a great history of being

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dryeo ( 100693 )

          What happened with the Spanish socialist experiment was the Stalinist's showed up and fucked it all up. Orwell wrote some interesting stuff on the whole thing and how quickly it went from socialist paradise to authoritarian hell. Similar seems to have happened with all Socialist revolutions, at that revolutions in general seem to end up with the authoritarians in control.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by chefren ( 17219 )

        Usually it's still the government taking control over businesses in fascism, but not in the socialist way of changing the internal structure of any companies and how they operate. Instead you get the businessmen to join the leading political party and toe the line, or you throw them in jail (or kill them) and hand over their business to a party member (e.g. Hermann Göring).

        What blurs the line is that the fascists usually gets some of big business on board with this before they even get into power and s

  • And I'm sure it won't be a gift-in-kind but a "discounted" purchase of the overhyped IPO price.

  • The government (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Thursday July 02, 2026 @01:19PM (#66220096)

    I pay taxes. Where is my cut?

  • preparing to fight some kind of "Communism" taking over "Amurrikah"?

    turns out he was fighting the demented ape in the mirror?

    LOL

  • Richard Nixon wondering why he resigned.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MikeDataLink ( 536925 ) on Thursday July 02, 2026 @01:33PM (#66220130) Homepage Journal

    Ole Nixon is down there in hell asking himself why the hell he resigned. In today's presidential administrations you have to resign if you're not corrupt enough.

    • Re:Richard Nixon wondering why he resigned.... (Score:5, Informative)

      by caseih ( 160668 ) on Thursday July 02, 2026 @02:00PM (#66220168)

      In the last few weeks republican politicians and their supporters have publicly said Nixon shouldn't have resigned and was treated unfairly. Apparently what he did was totally fine by them. Vance in particular expressed sympathy for Nixon. Who's woke now? Surreal.

      • Re:Richard Nixon wondering why he resigned.... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Thursday July 02, 2026 @02:26PM (#66220212)

        Nixon resigned because if he didn't he was going to be impeached and removed.

        What Nixon really needed was a Republican Congress that was so servile and supplicant that they would just let Nixon off the hook and give him an attaboy. Says a lot about them that their predecessors had some sense of decorum of the office and some spinal rigidity. Now they are all just worms.

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          He should have planned ahead like Trump did. Stack the Supreme Court and have them make everything you do legal.

      • In the last few weeks republican politicians and their supporters have publicly said Nixon shouldn't have resigned and was treated unfairly. Apparently what he did was totally fine by them. Vance in particular expressed sympathy for Nixon. Who's woke now? Surreal.

        It's worth remembering something about Nixon: we have the tapes. He incriminated himself in his own voice, by committing obstruction of justice.

        Now, I'd like to hear whether the current administration considers obstruction of justice to be a core act of the presidency (with absolute immunity) or an official act (with presumed immunity). On second thought, never mind, maybe I don't need to hear it.

    • Re:Richard Nixon wondering why he resigned.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by cmdr_klarg ( 629569 ) on Thursday July 02, 2026 @02:38PM (#66220226)

      Ole Nixon is down there in hell asking himself why the hell he resigned. In today's presidential administrations you have to resign if you're not corrupt enough.

      Nixon didn't have a cult following him, nor did he have a complicit Congress letting him get away with his BS, and he also didn't have a SCOTUS that wants to let him get away with more BS. SCOTUS at least isn't rubberstamping all his activities, but they're done so on far too many cases.

    • Vance literally said Nixon wouldn't have if he did Watergate today.

      He also complained about how little coverage Biden's health got... To US troops. In full knowledge of the lie.

    • You joke, but Vance has been doing the rounds pushing the line that "If Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story. The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy." -as if that makes everything that is happening now OK.

      • Basically Vance is just trying to make ultra-sure that everyone knows he's in lockstep with the president in all ways... including in corruption.

  • The government needs to get out of subsidizing massive companies, especially those that are able to raise billions of dollars on their own anyways. The future of this is the Chinese system where any company partnered with the government pays lower taxes - effectively requiring all companies to be government owned in order to compete with the lower prices those companies offer.

  • LOL! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sebby ( 238625 ) on Thursday July 02, 2026 @01:35PM (#66220134) Journal

    "Such a deal would help improve the industry's relations with the Trump administration and could help garner political support by sharing wealth generated by the AI boom with the public"

    LOL! You sweet, naive child.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by shanen ( 462549 )

      I hope you get the Funny, but on your sig I currently favor Rumplicans versus Dumbocrats. R is where their noses are for the orange-nosing cowardice, whereas D is for believing in various stripes of flying elephants, with or without feathers. (There's an old book by Woody Allen from back when he was funny...)

    • "Such a deal would help improve the industry's relations with the Trump administration and could help garner political support by sharing wealth generated by the AI boom with the public"

      LOL! You sweet, naive child.

      Yeah, the truth is by tying it to the government and promising to give money to the public, they'd be setting themselves up for some of that sweet, sweet "To Big To Fail" cash when the bubble begins to burst and the levee begins to break. That "giving money to the public" would quickly turn into "public must support us, or we can't support them," which would just as quickly become, "permanent government supplied subsidy for existing."

      These sick fuckers won't be satisfied with draining our 401ks. They want *

    • "Such a deal would help improve the industry's relations with the Trump administration and could help garner political support by sharing wealth generated by the AI boom with the public"

      LOL! You sweet, naive child.

      For two reasons:

      First, that the wealth will be shared. It'll be squandered on various boondoggles.

      Second, that the Trump administration won't want a second bite of that apple. I think if you tell The Orange Man that he has to do something because he agreed to it, he'd give you that confused head tilt dogs do.

  • Not Capitalists (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gurps_npc ( 621217 ) on Thursday July 02, 2026 @01:59PM (#66220166) Homepage

    The Republican Party has abandoned Capitalism for Plutocracy long ago.

    They yell SOCIALISM every time someone objects to their plutocracy.

    They have no idea what real capitalism is. Free Markets, not government control, and government providing necessary services for every case when capitalism cannot solve the problem.

    Examples of capitalism not solving problems include:
    Judicial services
    Prison
    Police
    Military
    Fire
    Education
    Roads
    Utility
    Safety regulations
    and yes, HEALTHCARE

    • Congratulations on waking up from your coma from 1964. A lot's changed.

    • There is no such thing as capitalism.

      https://dagens-fel.livejournal... [livejournal.com]

      Don't use words or concepts you don't understand.

  • Why do we want 5% of their debt? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Fly Swatter ( 30498 ) on Thursday July 02, 2026 @02:00PM (#66220170) Homepage
    Unless they pay a dividend - why would the taxpayer be interested? To take advantage of an appreciating stock you have to sell, then you don't have it anymore to appreciate...

    • Exactly, OpenAI is in debt and produces no profits. It looks like they're trying to shift debt onto the public.

      • Shift debt onto the public? How does that work exactly?

        Owning stock in a company that is in debt does not make the stockholder in debt. It just means the investment is at risk if the company can't pay off the loan.

        For the record, I'm against the government having a position in OpenAI, or any other AI company. At this time, there is no need to rescue the industry, or to have a strategic stake in it.

        • At best OpenAI is offering a zero value asset. At worst they're going to use the share offering to solicit bailouts later.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Hahaha, yes. OpenAI has massive negative worth now. But the US taxpayer is fine with getting to pay for that too, right?

  • Watch the attempt at mastering bribes.

  • AI and robots mean most jobs are going away. Capitalism used to balance the needs of capital and labor, with labor fighting tooth and nail to get their fair share. When capital does not need labor what will happen, are capitalists finally going to be charitable and generous? The big problem is so many people do not believe AI and robots will take most jobs: https://slashdot.org/poll/3281... [slashdot.org]
    That poll (When will AGI be achieved?) is already a year old, we need another Slashdot poll: are we on the path to S

  • The US Government has a stake in multiple companies so adding OpenAI to the expanding list
    isn't really anything new or groundbreaking. Many of them are critical sectors / technology /
    materials from a national security or tech advancement point of view.

    You can read about them here:

    https://moeonmargin.substack.c... [substack.com]

  • THEY GONNA WANT A BAILOUT (Score:3)

    by SlashDotCanSuckMy777 ( 6182618 ) on Friday July 03, 2026 @02:46AM (#66220974)

    All these AI companies are angling for this. Privatise the profits, socialise the losses.

    Let them burn.

  • as that jet and expect to take it with him when he leaves office.
    • Sovereign wealth funds are nothing new.Since much of the "productive" land ( cattle / oil / water / electromagnetic-bandwadth ) is government owned, the citizenry might as ell rake-in a fraction of derived profits. Combine sovereign wealth funds  with  savings from driving-out the welfare-dependent border-jumping narco-Mex and you have a real grasp on budget balancing and citizen services.

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