Donald Trump is planning to meet the bosses of America’s biggest artificial intelligence companies at the White House next week – with the aim of persuading them to let the US government take a financial stake in their businesses. Speaking on Air Force One, the US president said the goal was to “create almost a partnership with the American public”.
The move comes as public sentiment towards AI has soured, and part of the investment plan is intended to improve Americans’ views of the technology. “We’re talking about it where the American people can benefit from the success of AI, the American people will like it better,” Trump said.
“Trump plans White House meeting with AI firms next week to push for US government stake.”
Although he did not name specific firms, the most prominent US companies working on AI include Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, SpaceX and Anthropic – the last two expected to go public in the coming weeks. A spokesman for Microsoft declined to comment; representatives of the other four did not respond to requests.
Trump compared the potential investment to the US government taking a 10% stake in Intel last year, claiming it had already made money on that deal. “There’s so much money and it’s so big that there are concepts where pieces could be given to the American public,” he said.
The proposal echoes one floated by Senator Bernie Sanders, who recently said he intended to create a sovereign wealth fund that would take a 50% stake in AI companies. Sanders met OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman in Washington DC this week. Asked about Sanders’ plan, Trump insisted he had been considering the idea for a year but did not dismiss it. “Where economics are concerned, we have things that aren’t that far apart,” he said. A representative for Sanders did not respond to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, Anthropic’s chief executive Dario Amodei met senior White House officials a few weeks ago – a sign of easing tensions after the company became embroiled in a lawsuit with the US Department of Defense over its refusal to accept broad new contract terms. Anthropic has since publicly praised Trump’s Executive Order on AI, and co-founder Jack Clark told the BBC’s Newsnight: “We’re in daily conversations with the US government and we’re finding ways to be helpful to national security.”