Trump administration and Anthropic did not have talks about government taking stakes in the AI firm: Report

The Trump administration and artificial intelligence company Anthropic have not had any discussions about the government taking a stake in the company, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing a source familiar with the matter.

The statement follows an earlier report from the Financial Times that OpenAI was discussing giving the US government a 5% stake in the company.

AI firms are facing growing scrutiny in Washington over possible misuse of advanced AI models and whether the public will benefit from the industry’s rising valuations.

The White House, the Commerce Department and Anthropic did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.

Will the US government have a stake in OpenAI soon?

OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, reportedly believes that giving the US government a stake in the company would allow the American public to benefit from the future growth of artificial intelligence.

The report also comes after OpenAI delayed the public launch of GPT-5.6 last week at the request of the US government.

According to the FT report, discussions are still in the early stages and no final decision has been made yet. He also added that such a plan would likely need approval from the US Congress before being implemented.

The news publication reported that Altman and other OpenAI executives suggested other major U.S. AI companies could also contribute 5% of their shares to a public investment fund.

The fund will operate like the Alaska Permanent Fund, which invests in oil revenue and pays returns to Alaska residents. The proposal comes shortly after US President Donald Trump said his administration was exploring ways to allow ordinary Americans to financially benefit from the rapidly growing artificial intelligence industry.

Anthropic’s strained ties with the Trump administration

OpenAI announced on Friday that it was delaying the wider release of its latest AI model, GPT-5.6, at the request of the US government. That same day, the U.S. Department of Commerce notified Anthropic that it would ease export controls on its powerful Mythos AI model, ending a two-week period during which Anthropic had to disable the model for all users.

But Anthropic has faced much greater regulatory pressure from the Trump administration, OpenAI or pretty much any other tech company.

In April, the Pentagon labeled Anthropic a “supply chain risk” after the company refused to agree to certain contract terms. Then, two weeks ago, the US imposed export controls on both Mythos and its commercial version, Fable, after authorities detected a jailbreak that could bypass security guardrails and unlock Mythos’ advanced cyber capabilities.

Trump administration officials have repeatedly criticized Anthropic and its CEO, Dario Amodei. The news release noted that Trump himself posted on social media that the company was made up of “left-wing cranks trying to strong-arm the War Department (the Pentagon, recently renamed by Trump) when management decided to label the company a “supply chain risk.”