Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has revived his idea of sharing the wealth generated by artificial intelligence with Americans. According to a Financial Times report last week, Altman is in talks with President Trump about giving the US government a 5% stake in OpenAI. If realized, this move could translate into about $320 per American household, as reported by MIT Technology Review.
Altman and the plan for a public stake in OpenAI
The proposal is not new. In 2021, Altman envisioned a more radical mechanism: all companies above a certain valuation would pay 2.5% of their market value each year into a fund to distribute dividends to citizens. Last April, OpenAI presented a narrower version, very similar to the one now being discussed with the White House. The idea has broad political appeal: Senator Bernie Sanders has proposed giving Americans a 50% stake in top AI companies.
Why an equity stake? Compensation and safety net
The logic behind the plan is twofold. On one hand, AI learns from human-created works such as books, movies, and art, without compensating the authors. A free equity stake could serve as a form of belated compensation. On the other hand, the payout could mitigate widespread anxiety that AI will cause a collapse of the labor market, offering a safety net. While economists disagree on this point, the idea of a social dividend recurs in public debate.
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How much is the stake worth? The numbers behind the proposal
Concrete details are still scarce. After its funding round in March, OpenAI was valued at $852 billion, making a 5% stake worth about $42.6 billion. Distributing this amount equally among the 133 million American households would give each about $320 in equity. However, if the government managed the fund as a sovereign wealth fund, it would not distribute shares directly but would let the capital grow and then pay out a portion of the returns, perhaps in a larger form when AI companies start generating sustainable profits. The model echoes the Alaska Permanent Fund, established in the 1970s to give Alaskans a share of oil revenues. Altman drew inspiration from that system, with the difference that oil is a depleting resource, while AI promises decades of wealth.
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What's in it for OpenAI? Relations with the Trump administration
Beyond public opinion, there is a strategic interest for OpenAI. The Trump administration loves making tech deals, as shown by its equity stake in Intel and its share of Nvidia sales to China. Staying on the administration's good side is essential for AI companies, as Anthropic has learned. It could mean not having their models deemed a supply chain risk, or getting more help from the White House to stop Chinese rivals.
More a story than a policy: the future of AI up for debate
My main takeaway is that these plans currently function more as a narrative than a concrete policy. Altman has been discussing some version of this idea for five years and reportedly pitched it to Trump soon after he took office, yet there is still little indication of a defined plan. The more ambitious proposal from Sanders is even less likely to gain traction. However, these debates reveal just how uncertain the future of AI still is. The real objective may not be the check in Americans' pockets, but to convince them that the AI boom will be large enough to share. For more on the distribution of wealth in the AI era, read the article on Altman promises $300 per family. Additionally, to understand how AI policies intertwine with big tech, check the Wikipedia page on OpenAI.
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Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/07/06/1140176/your-familys-300-stake-in-openai
