Trump eyes a stake in A.I.

“Good morning. Andrew here. Breaking: After Iran and Israel exchanged strikes, oil prices are up. And yet the stock market remains mostly positive. The juxtaposition is bewildering.

 

Another head-scratcher: Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the lead underwriters for SpaceX’s I.P.O., are reportedly promoting internal research by their analysts with particularly bullish forecasts for the company. For years after the dot-com crash, that was considered forbidden. Now, it’s not — but should it be? Read our report and let us know what you think. (Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here.)

 

Tighter reins

 

For much of President Trump’s second term, his administration’s approach to artificial intelligence has been to let the industry rip.

 

But amid personnel changes and potential new policies — including the federal government owning pieces of A.I. giants — Trump is signaling that he’s willing to take a more hands-on approach.

 

“We’ll look into that,” he told reporters on Friday about the prospect of A.I. companies giving taxpayers stakes in their firms. The comments came after a report by the publication NOTUS, citing unnamed sources, that Sam Altman of OpenAI had recently discussed such a plan. (Anthropic, which has filed for an I.P.O., reportedly isn’t currently engaging in such talks.)

 

    Such a move could be linked to the idea of universal basic capital, in which workers are given a share of the industry that may put many out of work. Returns on these investments could go toward a dividend payment to American households, NOTUS reported.

 

    It raises big questions, including how effectively the government could regulate companies it owns a stake in, and whether those A.I. giants would be more likely to get federal bailouts if they run into trouble.

 

That’s after Trump signed an executive order about A.I. oversight, in which tech giants would be asked to voluntarily give the government 30 days to review their newest models before releasing them to the public. (Trump had initially rejected a proposed 90-day review.)

 

And a top A.I. official is leaving the White House. Sriram Krishnan, a onetime Andreessen Horowitz partner who became the administration’s senior policy adviser for A.I., wrote on social media that he was stepping down.

 

Krishnan shared the pro-industry leanings of David Sacks, the former White House A.I. czar, having helped create the administration’s action plan that prioritized innovation over stricter safeguards for A.I. development. He was also involved in the White House seeking to limit states’ ability to regulate the technology.

 

What’s emerging is a White House more willing to regulate the industry, which it has essentially deemed a key national security priority. Consider how it has urged Anthropic to set tight limits on who can access Mythos, its next-generation model, amid concerns about its cyberwarfare abilities. (Anthropic only last week widened how many companies could use Mythos.)

 

Not everyone is thrilled with the administration’s shift:

 

    “I am fairly confident this is a mistake,” Dean Ball, a former White House A.I. adviser, wrote on X after Trump signed the executive order.

 

    And OpenAI called for civilian agencies to lead the government reviews of A.I. models. (Altman made the rounds in Washington last week.)” [1]

 

1. DealBook: Trump eyes a stake in A.I. New York Times (Online) New York Times Company. Jun 8, 2026.