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

The Trump administration and AI company Anthropic have not held any discussions about the government taking stakes in the firm, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing a source familiar with the matter.

The clarification comes after a Financial Times report said earlier that OpenAI had discussed giving the US government a 5% stake in the company.

AI firms have been facing growing scrutiny in Washington over possible misuse of advanced artificial intelligence models and whether the public would benefit from the industry's soaring valuations.

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

US govt to soon own a stake in OpenAI?

OpenAI's chief executive 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 full public launch of GPT-5.6 last week at the request of the US government.

According to the FT report, the discussions are still at an early stage, and no final decision has been made yet. It also added that any such plan would likely require approval from the US Congress before it could be implemented.

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

The fund would work like the Alaska Permanent Fund, which invests 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 benefit financially from the fast-growing AI industry.

Anthropic's uneasy ties with 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. The same day, US Commerce Department informed 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, Fortune reported.

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

In April, the Pentagon labelled Anthropic a "supply chain risk" after the company refused to accept certain contract terms. Then, two weeks ago, the US imposed export controls on both Mythos and its commercial version, Fable, after authorities discovered a jailbreak that could bypass safety guardrails and expose Mythos' advanced cyber capabilities.

Trump administration officials have repeatedly criticised Anthropic and its CEO Dario Amodei. Trump himself posted on social media that the company consisted of “leftwing nut jobs” who were trying to “strong-arm the Department of War” (the Pentagon, recently renamed by Trump) when the administration took the decision to label the company a “supply chain risk,” the news publication noted.