MW Trump's Washington is suddenly moving toward taking stakes in AI companies. Will it actually happen?
By Victor Reklaitis
The Trump administration already has stakes in Intel, quantum-computing companies and rare-earth plays
Could taxpayers soon have an equity stake in AI chatbots?
President Donald Trump has joined other influential figures in talking about setting up U.S. taxpayers with ownership stakes in artificial-intelligence companies, but analysts aren't sounding convinced that it's likely in the near future.
Trump on Friday told reporters on Air Force One that his administration is looking at a situation "where the American public essentially becomes a partner with the companies," as he touted his deal with Intel $(INTC)$ last year that resulted in a 10% government stake in the chip giant. Trump also said big AI companies could visit the White House this week to talk about a state of affairs "where the American people can benefit from the success of AI, and by doing that, they're going to like it better."
The president's comments come after Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an influential independent politician who typically votes with Democrats, proposed a plan a week ago that would give the public a 50% ownership stake in AI giants such as OpenAI and Anthropic. Sanders noted that OpenAI has backed establishing a public wealth fund that gives every citizen "a stake in AI-driven economic growth," with rivals supporting similar plans. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman then met with Sanders on Wednesday in Washington, while also meeting with other policymakers.
So should we all get ready to be shareholders in the AI companies that are sparking concerns about job losses? Probably not, according to Tobin Marcus, head of policy and politics at Wolfe Research.
"I would guess that this does not happen in the near term," Marcus told MarketWatch. "I certainly don't think that a congressionally mediated version of this, in line with Senator Sanders' thinking, is going to happen, and in terms of a sort of one-off transactional exchange with the administration, the questions about what OpenAI would be seeking in return - and whether or not the administration has funds they can use for that purpose - to me are serious enough threshold questions to doubt that this is going to come around particularly soon."
Dan McCarthy, a senior adviser at Veda Partners, also was skeptical.
"It's really hard to see how they could do that through executive action, and I don't see any way Congress would support this, particularly with its current composition," McCarthy said. He added that another hurdle is an influential Trump ally, former tech-policy adviser David Sacks, has expressed opposition, plus there may not be much overall support in the tech and AI industry.
For the stake in Intel, the Trump administration used Chips and Science Act authorities that didn't look like they'd work with AI companies, McCarthy said. The administration is likely considering using Defense Production Act authorities, but the Veda expert said he doesn't think those seem like a good fit. In addition, distributing money to Americans from any deals "would really take an act of Congress," he said.
On the other hand, Pangaea Policy founder Terry Haines said he sees a real possibility for some government stakes in companies that are at least strongly tied to the AI industry, if not necessarily in the companies that are developing leading AI models.
"If they can't get sufficient investment from the private sector to maximize AI development and deployment, then they will consider taking stakes in some subset of it," Haines told MarketWatch. He said that could include companies that are involved in developing the data centers that power AI tools, or the energy-infrastructure companies that serve the data centers.
For the Trump team, the AI race is an "existential" matter, and that's why they're trying to get as much investment as they can into the field, Haines added.
Besides Intel, the Trump administration also has taken stakes in companies involved in quantum computing, as well as in companies mining rare-earth elements.
-Victor Reklaitis
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June 08, 2026 16:09 ET (20:09 GMT)
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