OpenAI: In early talks to give 5% stake to US Government

Re:OpenAI: In early talks to give 5% stake to US Government by Traster on Thursday July 02, 2026 @08:08AM (#48760171)

Interesting. But if Sam really believes that the US public should share in the benefits of AI surely the number should be 50% not 5%.

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Re:OpenAI: In early talks to give 5% stake to US Government by logicalappeals on Thursday July 02, 2026 @08:18AM (#48760301)

Agreed. 5% seems like enough to throw a dog a bone, but not have enough skin in the game

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Re:OpenAI: In early talks to give 5% stake to US Government by oliver-rock on Thursday July 02, 2026 @08:16AM (#48760284)

Why 50% and not 100%? The obvious answer is it creates strange incentives. Maybe something like 5% across the board for all large tech companies make sense?

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Re:OpenAI: In early talks to give 5% stake to US Government by ralferoo on Thursday July 02, 2026 @11:36AM (#48763203)

Or instead, they could just continue the simple route of taxing companies via corporation tax and dividend tax without having to worry about ownership at all.

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Re:OpenAI: In early talks to give 5% stake to US Government by cucumber3732842 on Thursday July 02, 2026 @08:36AM (#48760530)

What's your basis for conflating government ownership with public benefit?

Seems to me like it creates a lot of perverse incentives.

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Re:OpenAI: In early talks to give 5% stake to US Government by reverius42 on Friday July 03, 2026 @01:30AM (#48771163)

I agree, I think we should go back to the old system of letting them be fully private and just taxing their gains heavily to pay for the public debts/needs.

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