President Donald Trump is planning to meet the bosses of some of the country's most notable artificial intelligence companies to discuss the government taking a financial stake in their future. Speaking on Air Force One, Trump said the goal was to "create almost a partnership with the American public". He expects to hold the meeting at the White House, likely next week.
Although the president did not name specific companies, the biggest US firms working on AI include Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, SpaceX and Anthropic – the latter two of which are 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 for comment.
“President Trump to meet top AI executives at White House next week to discuss US government taking a financial stake in their companies.”
Trump compared the prospective investment to the US government taking a 10% stake in Intel last year, claiming the US has already made money on that investment. Part of the rationale, he said, was to improve Americans' views of the technology, which have grown increasingly negative. "We're talking about it," Trump said, "where the American people can benefit from the success of AI, the American people will like it better."
The meeting comes amid other high-level discussions. Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, travelled to Washington DC this week and met Senator Bernie Sanders. Sanders recently said he intended to propose a sovereign wealth fund in which the US would take a 50% stake in AI companies. Asked about Sanders' plan, Trump insisted he had been considering the US investing in AI companies for a year, but did not dismiss the senator's notion. "Where economics are concerned, we have things that aren't that far apart," Trump said. A representative for Sanders did not respond to a request for comment.
Separately, Dario Amodei, chief executive of Anthropic, met senior White House officials a few weeks ago. Although Anthropic is currently embroiled in a lawsuit with the US Department of Defense over its refusal to accept broad new contract terms, the meeting was a sign of easing tensions. Anthropic this week publicly praised Trump's executive order on AI, and Jack Clark, a co-founder, told BBC's Newsnight on Thursday that Anthropic was "in daily conversations with the US government and we're finding ways to be helpful to national security".