OpenAI reportedly weighs giving the US government a 5% stake to court the Trump administration

OpenAI is reportedly discussing giving the U.S. federal government a 5% equity stake, according to reporting picked up by Reuters and TIME, in what would be an unprecedented arrangement between a leading AI lab and Washington. The talks come amid growing political pressure on American AI firms and follow OpenAI's decision to restrict release of its GPT-5.6 models at the administration's request. Altman has floated the idea that a public stake could 'share AI benefits' more broadly.

The context is a high-stakes IPO path — with separate reports of a rumored $1 trillion valuation — in which government goodwill matters. GPT-5.6, codenamed Sol, Terra and Luna, remains gated to roughly 20 partner organizations, with a 'reasoning-effort' slider designed to trade speed against depth; broad availability is expected within weeks.

A government equity stake would be extraordinary and raises obvious governance questions: conflicts of interest in regulation, antitrust posture, and whether other labs would face pressure to follow. It also lands against the backdrop of the Anthropic export-control saga, underscoring how directly frontier AI is now entangled with U.S. national policy.

Skeptics note the report is unconfirmed and that structuring a federal equity position in a capped-profit-derived entity is legally novel. What to watch: whether OpenAI or the administration confirms the discussions, how any stake would be structured relative to Microsoft's ~27% position, and whether the GPT-5.6 hold is lifted as relations warm.