Senate Republicans Break With Trump On His AI Equity Idea

Congressional Republicans are breaking with President Donald Trump over his call to have the federal government take shares in the largest artificial intelligence companies.

At least a dozen GOP House and Senate offices are against the idea, according to interviews with lawmakers and their aides.

“I don’t think the federal government should be in the business of being an equity holder in private companies,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), chairman of the Senate Committee on Science, Technology and Commerce, told NOTUS.

Even Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri), who has become an outspoken voice for the government to have a larger role in AI regulation, was hesitant about Trump’s approach.

“I’m not a huge fan of the government owning industry, and I think with this you’d combine the worst of the big bureaucrats with the Big Tech monopolist,” he said.

On Friday, Trump told reporters that the administration was weighing acquiring equity in the biggest AI giants, such as Anthropic and OpenAI, as the companies move toward historically large initial public offerings.

The idea was initially floated to the president by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who suggested his firm voluntarily cede shares worth billions of dollars to the government as a way to stem public anger over the rise of AI.

Trump, too, touted the idea as a response to broad public angst over the rise of AI, as polls continue to show Americans are apprehensive about the potential impact of new data centers and the new technology.

“There’s so much money, they’re so big, where pieces could be given to the American public,” Trump told reporters last week. “There’s something interesting about it.”

The government taking equity in AI firms could result in billions of dollars in federal revenue, distributable as dividends or as a way to pay down the deficit, rather than allowing company profits to accrue to a far narrower share of executives and investors.

Supporters of the government getting a cut of AI giants’ profits argue that the technology is built on the accumulated contributions of the public at large, and therefore the public at large should also benefit from it. Those on the opposite side of the political spectrum as Trump, like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), are proponents of this position.

Trump’s allies, meanwhile, have balked at the proposal since it became public — the latest intraparty rupture over the president’s proposed interventions in the economy.

“I don’t like that idea at all. That’s the reverse of privatization,” said Stephen Moore, an outside adviser to the White House. “There’s a lot of angst over this idea of the government taking shares in private companies. It’s not the proper role for the federal government. You can’t have the government taking private property.”

Senate Republicans worry that government involvement in the AI industry could stifle innovation, which has been a political priority for the GOP establishment since Trump returned to office.

“I still think that the private enterprise program is the best,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-South Dakota) said. “I’d rather have open competition and not have the government favor one particular type of product because they have a stake in it versus another. I think that could cause us some problems long term.”

“Generally I think the private sector should remain the private sector,” Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) said.

Trump’s economic policies have at least partially defied long-standing party orthodoxy on tariffs, deficits and the independence of the nation’s central bank. In both his first and second term, the president has embraced a much more active, interventionist role for the federal government in the economy, partially reversing the libertarian posture of the party of Ronald Reagan.

Republicans have supported the president’s economic agenda despite those breaks from their preferences, in part because he still supports large tax cuts and business deregulation.

But Trump’s interest in having the government acquire shares in private firms may pose an even greater conflict for the party.

Republican lawmakers were already unhappy with the president’s existing moves to take equity shares in companies, including a 10% share in the chipmaker Intel. Acquiring parts of the AI companies, whose investments have lifted the U.S. economy over the last year, would represent an even bigger move in that direction.

“They don’t like it at all,” one GOP aide said of the party’s reaction, predicting near unanimous opposition among the conference to the idea.

Not all Republican senators were against the idea outright. Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), one of Trump’s strongest supporters in the Senate, said he wouldn’t weigh in on the idea of the government acquiring shares in AI companies until he had more details.

However, he lauded Trump’s deal with Intel as “brilliant.”

“Remember, Biden was just gonna give them $10 billion on behalf of the taxpayer,” Moreno told NOTUS. “Trump said: ‘Here $10 billion, but we get 10% of the company.’”

In comments to reporters, Trump compared his plan to one pushed by Sanders, which would have the government acquire at least 50% of the AI firms’ shares. Altman’s talks with the administration have centered on giving the government far less than 50% of his company’s shares, but conservative policy analysts fear even partial nationalization could validate Sanders’ plans.

“Even if they’re not vocal, Republicans think this is a bad idea,” said Doug Holtz-Eakin, a former adviser to Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) and the president of the American Action Forum, a center-right think tank. “It’s terrible to talk like this — it gives people like Bernie Sanders some legitimacy, which is something nobody should ever do.”