OpenAI is now worth $852 billion. The people who built that valuation are a small group of venture capitalists, early employees, and institutional investors. A much larger group of workers had their jobs, wages, and industries reshaped to help get it there. Most of them have no financial stake in the outcome.On July 2, the Financial Times reported that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has been pitching something to the Trump administration to try to manage that problem. The details are specific, and they say a lot about where the AI economy’s money is actually going.The wealth OpenAI is building and who is capturing itOpenAI closed a record-breaking funding round in March at a post-money valuation of $852 billion. A 5% stake in the company is worth approximately $42.6 billion. That equity sits with SoftBank, Microsoft, venture firms, and a concentrated group of early investors who got in before ChatGPT became a household name. Average Americans own none of it.Semiconductor companies, cloud providers, and AI infrastructure builders have seen their stocks surge. Workers most exposed to AI displacement have had little recourse. CNBC noted that growing public backlash over AI’s potential to cause economic upheaval, including layoffs, is what pushed this conversation into Washington.More OpenAI:OpenAI’s $1 trillion ambition could delay its IPOOpenAI just built a chip to cut Nvidia out of one jobOpenAI makes IPO decision amid Anthropic, SpaceX fervorCustomer service workers, paralegals, junior coders, and content writers are already seeing this play out in their job markets. Hiring has slowed. Pay has compressed. The businesses collecting the efficiency gains are the ones that built and sold the AI systems, making those cuts possible.What OpenAI is proposing to give the U.S. governmentThe Financial Times reported that Altman has discussed handing the U.S. government a 5% equity stake in OpenAI, citing two people familiar with talks described as early and conceptual. Reuters said it could not immediately verify the report. OpenAI and the White House did not comment.Altman personally raised the proposal with President Donald Trump, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. He also spoke with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). The structure being discussed is modeled on the Alaska Permanent Fund. A state-owned corporation seeded with oil revenues that has paid annual dividends to Alaska residents since 1982, the Fund was valued at nearly $91.2 billion as of May 31. Altman’s pitch: Apply the same model to AI equity, and every American gets a cut, instead of just the venture firms.OpenAI is preparing for an IPO, and the government has been squeezing AI companies harder. As TheStreet reported, the Trump administration has been demanding early model access and pressuring companies to delay public launches. Offering the government equity is Altman’s way of buying goodwill and regulatory breathing room before the listing. Any deal may require an act of Congress, the FT noted.
If Altman’s AI equity proposal is accepted and Congress acts, the most optimistic version looks something like the Alaska Permanent Fund.Anna/Getty Images
What government AI equity would mean for Americans and their walletsWashington now has three competing answers to the same question about who profits from AI. OpenAI’s 5% government stake is the most modest option. Bernie Sanders wants the government to take a 50% stake in all major AI companies, arguing that the technology was built on human knowledge used without permission or compensation. Anthropic has floated a “digital dividend,” funded through taxes on the AI sector and paid directly to Americans.None of these proposals exists yet. All three are responses to the same gap. The AI boom is generating enormous wealth that is not reaching ordinary households through wages, benefits, or portfolio appreciation.If you have a 401(k) or a broad index fund, you have some indirect exposure to AI-related gains through companies like Nvidia, Microsoft, and Alphabet. That exposure is spread unevenly. Workers most disrupted by AI are often in roles with limited investment savings. Their wages and job security are under pressure from the same technology that enriches investors in a completely different income bracket.If the deal goes through and Congress acts, the most optimistic version looks something like the Alaska model: an annual check from the AI economy to every American. Getting there requires congressional action, legal structuring, regulatory negotiations, and likely years of work before any payment reaches anyone. If the government ends up taking equity but using it for fiscal purposes rather than direct payments, individuals see nothing.What investors holding AI stocks should think about nowAI stocks now carry two sets of risks. Financial performance is one. What Washington decides to do with the industry is the other. OpenAI’s rivals have already felt that directly. Anthropic had its two newest models suspended for 19 days in June after a government order. OpenAI was asked to delay its own GPT-5.6 launch, TechCrunch reported.A company that hands the government a formal equity stake gets more protection from those interventions. It also gets a government with formal standing to weigh in on pricing, partnerships, and hiring decisions in ways a pure regulator cannot.Forrester analyst Indranil Bandyopadhyay told Reuters that a pre-IPO government stake “could ease investor risk concerns about regulation in the U.S.” Whether that upside outweighs the governance exposure depends on how any deal gets structured, a question nobody can answer yet.OpenAI’s reported proposal is still unconfirmed and far from settled. But it is being discussed between the CEO of an $852 billion AI company and the president of the United States. Who profits from AI used to be a market question. Now it is a political one, and the answer will show up in your investments, your employment market, and your paycheck, regardless of whether you own a single AI stock.Related: Elon Musk makes shocking admission about Sam Altman and OpenAI