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President Trump surprised tech CEOs by suddenly pushing the idea of the U.S. taking a small ownership stake in AI giants, so the American people share in the upside of what will be trillion-dollar companies.

"There's something very interesting about it, where it almost becomes a partnership with the American public," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One yesterday. "It's like you make them [partners] in this revolution. It would be a beautiful thing. ... It would make 'em rich."

Why it matters: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has pushed this idea with the Trump administration over the past year. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) reignited the conversation this week when he proposed giving the public a "direct ownership stake" in top AI companies via a one-time 50% tax, paid in stock.

Of course, industry advocates of the idea would favor giving up much less for an AI public wealth fund — 1-5% stakes have been kicked around.

Between the lines: AI is broadly unpopular in the U.S. Some industry leaders, and now clearly Trump, think the technology's image would improve if all Americans participated in this mind-boggling wealth creation.

Ahead of the expected stock offerings by Anthropic, SpaceX and OpenAI, Trump said there's "so much money, and it's so big, that there are concepts where pieces could be given to the American public, where the American public essentially becomes a partner ... with the companies."

"We'll look into that," Trump said. "We're talking about it, where the American people can benefit from the success of AI. And by doing that, they're gonna like it better ... We're leading China. We're leading everybody in the world with AI, and we want to keep it that way."

The backstory: Altman has pushed the concept in private conversations with administration officials, then in a proposal for an AI New Deal, then on Capitol Hill this week when he visited Sanders and leaders of both parties.

A "Public Wealth Fund" was one of the provocative ideas in OpenAI's "Industrial Policy for the Intelligence Age," out in April.

Between the lines: When a reporter asked Trump about the incongruity of embracing a proposal by Sanders, a democratic socialist, the president touted his economic populism. "As far as economics is concerned," Trump said, "we have certain things that aren't that far apart. People are surprised."

Trump: U.S. stake in AI giants "could be a beautiful thing"

"There's something very interesting about it, where it almost becomes a partnership with the American public."

Trump answers reporters questions as they extend mics toward him

President Trump speaks with reporters while aboard Air Force One en route to Chippewa Falls, Wisc., Friday. Photo: Samuel Corum/Getty Images

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U.S. politics & policy

From the Valley to D.C., Big Tech players like Facebook, Google and Amazon are under more scrutiny than ever as new technology develops and privacy and antitrust concerns grow in lockstep with companies’ ambitions.

Technology

2024 will be an election year like no other, as President Biden seeks re-election amid economic uncertainty, two wars and questions about his age. His likely foe, former President Trump, faces felony charges and vows revenge on his political enemies. Meanwhile, Americans generally are dissatisfied with those choices and are divided over immigration, race, education and more.

Politics & Policy

The AI bubble debate has lurched through at least three frenzied phases in the span of three years:

Suspicion: Historic sums of capital poured into AI before anyone proved it could reliably automate work. A violent market correction felt inevitable.

Mania: Claude Code and autonomous agents made the early skepticism look outdated, fueling a corporate scramble to embed AI everywhere and maximize usage.

Reckoning: Companies discovered that AI can be extraordinary when aimed precisely — and ruinously expensive when treated as a universal productivity machine.

Why it matters: The first phase doubted the technology. The second phase worshipped it. The third phase — currently gaining steam across Corporate America — questions whether AI's immense power is worth the price.

Zoom in: The case against AI used to come from outsiders — Luddites, "doomers," short sellers betting on a crash. Its newest skeptics are emerging from inside the boom.

Uber capped employee AI usage after burning through its annual Claude Code budget in four months. A top executive said the spending was getting "harder to justify," with no clear link between token use and more useful consumer features.

Amazon shut down an internal token leaderboard after employees gamed it with throwaway tasks to climb the rankings. An Amazon executive told staff, "Please don't use AI just for the sake of using AI."

GitHub moved Copilot, the AI coding assistant used by millions of developers, to usage-based billing as part of its effort to create a "sustainable" business. The change shocked users who were suddenly confronted with the true cost of heavy AI usage.

Bain surveyed 951 large companies and found AI savings falling well below projections, even as most firms planned to spend more. "The technology worked. The value didn't arrive," the report concluded.

The intrigue: Even OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has acknowledged the new concerns, calling the question of whether AI spending will show up in revenue "the most fair criticism" of the moment.

Reality check: The companies sounding the alarm are the early adopters. Most of the economy is still at the starting line, while the pioneers are the ones absorbing the cost shocks, wasted tokens and employee backlash.

AI is already creating real value for chipmakers, model labs and some power users. The harder question is whether that value spreads across the companies paying to deploy it.

By the numbers: Wall Street got a fresh reminder Friday of how much AI optimism is baked into markets.

The Nasdaq plummeted 4.2%, its worst day in more than a year, while the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index plunged 10.3%, its worst day in more than six years.

One culprit was Broadcom: The chipmaker reported explosive AI growth, but failed to raise its longer-term AI revenue outlook — disappointing investors looking for signs that demand was still accelerating.

The bottom line: AI can make the right worker dramatically more productive, but those gains depend on knowing exactly where and how to apply it. The real bubble may have been the assumption that AI could be sprayed across companies, employees and workflows and reliably pay for itself.

Revenge of the AI bubble

AI's newest skeptics are emerging from inside the boom.

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Trump: U.S. stake in AI giants "could be a beautiful thing"

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