OpenAI has held discussions about offering the U.S. government a 5% ownership stake, potentially structured through a sovereign wealth fund, according to a Financial Times report citing people familiar with the matter. The ChatGPT maker did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The move would add Washington to an already formidable roster of investors backing the company ahead of its highly anticipated public listing.
Such an arrangement could offer OpenAI several strategic advantages. A government stake would serve as a implicit endorsement of the company’s technology and valuation, which stood at $852 billion in its most recent funding round and could climb past $1 trillion following an IPO. The current administration has shown enthusiasm for equity stakes the government has taken in publicly traded companies, a dynamic that could bolster investor sentiment once OpenAI begins trading.
Government backing could also help clear regulatory hurdles. Washington has tightened its oversight of AI model releases in recent weeks. Anthropic’s Fable model was taken offline for more than two weeks over security concerns raised by federal officials before being restored after the company committed to additional safety measures. OpenAI has faced similar constraints: its newest model family, marketed under the GPT-5.6 name, will initially be limited to a small set of customers vetted by the administration, though the company hopes to expand availability more broadly in coming weeks.
A third potential benefit is competitive pressure. OpenAI’s overture to the government could nudge rival developers—including Anthropic, Alphabet, Meta Platforms, and Microsoft—toward similar arrangements as they push forward with advanced AI models.
An equity relationship with Washington could also lower the odds that Microsoft or other major cloud providers turn to cheaper Chinese AI alternatives in place of OpenAI’s own models. OpenAI and Anthropic have both accused China’s DeepSeek of distilling, or replicating, their leading models—an allegation DeepSeek has not addressed directly, though the firm has attributed its performance to novel engineering approaches.
