President Donald Trump has said he expects to meet leaders of major artificial intelligence companies next week to discuss the US government taking a financial stake in their businesses.
Speaking on Air Force One, Trump said the goal was to "create almost a partnership with the American public". He added: "There's so much money and it's so big that there are concepts where pieces could be given to the American public."
“Trump plans to meet AI leaders next week to discuss US government taking a financial stake.”
The meeting is expected at the White House. Trump did not name specific companies, but the biggest US AI firms include Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, SpaceX and Anthropic.
A spokesman for Microsoft declined to comment. Representatives of the other four companies did not respond to requests for comment.
Trump compared the potential investment to the US government taking a 10% stake in chipmaker Intel last year, claiming it had already made money on that deal.
Part of the plan, he said, would be to improve Americans' increasingly negative views of AI. "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."
OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman this week met Senator Bernie Sanders, who recently proposed a sovereign wealth fund that would take a 50% stake in AI companies. Asked about the plan, Trump said he had been considering US investment in AI for a year, adding: "Where economics are concerned, we have things that aren't that far apart."
Dario Amodei, chief executive of Anthropic, 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. Anthropic this week publicly praised Trump's Executive Order on AI.
Jack Clark, a co-founder of Anthropic, told BBC's Newsnight: "We're in daily conversations with the US government and we're finding ways to be helpful to national security."