Trump Administration Is Snapping Up Stakes in Private Companies. Could A.I. Be Next?

Over the past year, the Trump administration has made deals to acquire equity stakes in more than two dozen firms, an unusual practice that has extended the government’s influence over industries including semiconductors, nuclear energy, minerals, quantum computers and steel.Artificial intelligence executives are increasingly wondering if they will be next.Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, has long floated the idea of having A.I.companies give the country equity, including in meetings in Washington last month.

And President Trump has mused publicly about the possibility of having A.I.companies provide the United States with stakes in their business.So far, the administration does not appear to have decided on any formal plan for the government to own a piece of A.I.

companies.But Trump officials have discussed the possibility of taking direct stakes in A.I.

companies or using equity from those firms to seed new Trump investment accounts for children, according to people familiar with the discussions.The discussions are prompting interest and anxiety among A.I.executives.

Both Anthropic and OpenAI, the makers of the country’s most advanced models, have publicly talked about the possibility of some kind of arrangement that would share A.I.wealth directly with taxpayers, similar to the Alaska Permanent Fund, a sovereign wealth fund that uses oil profits to invest in the stock market and pay dividends to the state’s residents.But there are growing concerns about what that relationship could look like and the pressure it could exert on A.I.

firms, given that the administration has already taken a heavier hand in recent weeks to regulating Anthropic, one of the industry’s leading companies.Still, some A.I.firms believe allowing the public to share in the technology’s wealth could help stem rising public opposition, at a time when more Americans are concerned about the technology’s leading to job losses, higher energy costs and environmental effe...