WASHINGTON, July 3, 2026, 08:11 (EDT)
- OpenAI talked with the U.S. government about a possible 5% stake, the FT said. The discussions are early and Congress might have to sign off.
- With OpenAI valued at $852 billion, that stake comes to about $42.6 billion. That’s almost five times as much as the U.S. Intel NASDAQ:INTC equity buy.
- A source told Reuters there have been no talks between the Trump administration and Anthropic about a government stake in Anthropic.
- The NYSE and Nasdaq are closed Friday for the Independence Day holiday, so cash trading in listed AI suppliers will be delayed.
OpenAI has reportedly offered the U.S. government a 5% stake, which at the company’s latest $852 billion valuation would value the holding at $42.6 billion. That potential piece would be bigger than most recent direct government stakes in U.S. companies and could be key for IPO buyers to watch. OpenAI in March said it closed $122 billion in committed capital.
The Financial Times said the proposal would push other U.S. AI firms to offer similar stakes to a fund based on the Alaska Permanent Fund. The Guardian reported the talks are at an early, conceptual stage and may need Congress to act. Reuters was not able to verify the FT story, and said Alphabet’s Google NASDAQ:GOOGL would not comment. OpenAI, Anthropic, and the White House also did not reply.
If OpenAI hits the up-to-$1 trillion IPO valuation Reuters has flagged as possible, that $42.6 billion number jumps to $50 billion. That’s not an offer price—just the math public investors would face if they lock in a stake before the listing.
| Reference point for investors | Dollar value or stake | Read-through |
|---|---|---|
| OpenAI’s suggested U.S. stake | $42.6 billion | 5% of the last $852 billion mark |
| OpenAI IPO at up to $1 trillion valuation as reported earlier | $50.0 billion | 5% case, not a real pricing |
| Intel U.S. equity deal | $8.9 billion for 9.9% | OpenAI stake would be about 4.8x bigger |
| SoftBank Group (TYO:9984) loan talks backed by OpenAI | $10 billion | public stake on offer would come to about 4.3x more |
| OpenAI private placement targeting individual investors | over $3 billion | potential public stake would be about 14.2x the size |
Investor focus is on the size of the stake in play. The government’s Intel deal put federal support into a 9.9% holding for $8.9 billion. Reuters said the administration grabbed about 15% of MP Materials NYSE:MP in a broader effort to land equity exposure in key industries.
OpenAI faces questions over access to its shares before it has even hit public markets. CFO Sarah Friar told CNBC there was “really strong demand” from individual investors in the latest private round, Reuters said. Friar said it made sense for a company of OpenAI’s scale to “look and feel and act … like a public company.” Reuters
Investors are watching for details on price, voting rights, lockups, tax handling and potential dilution if a pre-IPO stake goes out. Forrester’s Indranil Bandyopadhyay told Reuters a government holding before IPO could cut U.S. regulatory issues, but he also flagged other countries might want the same deal; he said some enterprise clients in Europe and Asia-Pacific could now rethink whether U.S. models are neutral or meet local data rules.
The proposal hasn’t become an industry model yet. A source told Reuters the Trump administration and Anthropic haven’t held talks on the U.S. government taking a stake in Anthropic. Anthropic didn’t comment.
OpenAI has been pushing this policy for months. In April, it released a paper arguing for a Public Wealth Fund to give people “a stake in AI-driven economic growth.” The fund would send returns straight to citizens, and its assets would be invested in both AI companies and the firms adopting AI.
Sam Altman said AI “will reshape the material conditions of human life,” according to a Financial Times op-ed cited by Business Insider. He called for the U.S. to lead an international forum to establish global standards for AI. Altman also pushed for international cooperation to guard against too much concentration of power. Business Insider
Critics point to another risk. Adam Thierer, senior fellow at the R Street Institute, called government stakes in OpenAI a “recipe for cronyism and regulatory capture.” He also warned that government ownership could let politicians push for more control over model output. R Street Institute
| Listed company | OpenAI link stated by OpenAI | Investor issue |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft NASDAQ:MSFT | Cloud partner, in the funding round | IPO and OpenAI’s terms could shift value to a main AI partner |
| Nvidia NASDAQ:NVDA | OpenAI called Nvidia the core of its infrastructure | Compute buy stays key in OpenAI’s growth model |
| Oracle NYSE:ORCL | Cloud and data-center partner | Exposure to OpenAI’s data-center spend remains |
| Amazon.com NASDAQ:AMZN | AWS listed as a cloud partner; Amazon joined the March round | OpenAI’s scale plan includes multi-cloud costs |
| Alphabet NASDAQ:GOOGL | Google Cloud also named as a cloud partner | Government tie could push customers to question neutrality |
| Advanced Micro Devices NASDAQ:AMD | In OpenAI’s silicon portfolio | AI chip sales are still tied to supplier roles at OpenAI |
OpenAI’s March update gives public suppliers plenty to trade on. The company said ChatGPT now sees over 900 million weekly active users and has more than 50 million paying subscribers, with enterprise deals accounting for over 40% of revenue. OpenAI also listed Microsoft, Oracle, AWS, CoreWeave NASDAQ:CRWV and Google Cloud as cloud partners, and pointed to Nvidia, AMD, AWS Trainium, Cerebras and Broadcom NASDAQ:AVGO on the silicon side.
SoftBank’s lender negotiations are bumping up against the same valuation issues, this time from the credit side. Reuters said SoftBank started new talks for a $10 billion loan using its OpenAI stake as collateral, but ended up offering a corporate guarantee after lenders balked at just taking private-company shares.
No cash sessions will run in New York on Friday, with both the NYSE and Nasdaq closed July 3, 2026, for the Independence Day holiday.
