American AI companies are collectively worth trillions of dollars, and lawmakers, Nobel-winning economists, and AI executives themselves are asking whether ordinary citizens should own a piece of them. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has been discussing a plan to give the U.S. government a 5% equity stake in his company, according to a Financial Times report from early July. Altman wants other leading AI firms to do the same, with equity flowing into a government-run fund modeled on Alaska's Permanent Fund, which invests oil wealth and distributes annual payments to residents.
The talks are in early stages, and any deal would likely require an act of Congress. The proposal comes as public opinion on AI has turned sharply negative. More than 200 economists, including 16 Nobel laureates, have warned that AI could put millions of workers out of jobs within years, not the decades that previous waves of automation required.
A fund could cushion blow, if it's structured properly. Altman first raised the idea with the Trump administration in 2025, according to CNBC, and spent the next year building his case. OpenAI published a formal proposal in April calling for a "Public Wealth Fund" that would give every citizen, including the tens of millions of Americans who don't own a single share of stock, a stake in AI-driven growth.
Each American's share of the proposed stake would be worth between $125 and $146, depending on whether OpenAI goes public at its target valuation of $1 trillion or stays at its current $852 billion. That's a fraction of what Alaska's Permanent Fund typically pays to the state's more than 600,000 residents. Even in a down year, its payouts are robust: the Permanent Fund delivered $1,000 per resident in 2025, its lowest payout in five years.
Because the fund is worth more than $91 billion, having been built over five decades on continuous oil revenue and diversified investments, its dividends are consistent and high enough to mean something to each person. Altman's version would serve 342 million people with all of its money in a single company that's not yet profitable. OpenAI generated $13.1 billion in revenue in 2025 and spent more than twice that much running the business, according to audited financial statements verified by the Financial Times.
Alaska's fund pays out because it earns returns on a diversified portfolio every year. A government fund holding OpenAI stock wouldn't see similar returns anytime soon. Norway's Government Pension Fund Global, the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, held about $2.2 trillion at the end of 2025 and took half a century to get there, funded continuously by the country's oil revenue.
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