President Trump just put a new AI idea on the table, and if it goes anywhere, it could change who gets paid when America’s biggest tech companies cash in. The idea is simple enough to grab attention fast: if artificial intelligence becomes a trillion-dollar economic engine, the American people may deserve a piece of the upside. Reuters reported Friday that President Trump told reporters his team is looking into the idea of AI companies giving the American public a stake in their firms. He also said he expects to meet with AI executives at the White House “probably next week.” Axios framed the idea as a possible public stake in AI giants, reporting that Trump described it as a “partnership with the American public.” That one phrase is the whole story. For years, Americans have been told that AI will transform the economy, reshape work, strengthen national security, and create massive wealth. President Trump is now openly asking whether ordinary Americans should share directly in that wealth instead of watching only Silicon Valley and Wall Street collect the prize. Today, @POTUS signed a National Security Presidential Memorandum on AI in the national security enterprise. The men and women who defend our nation deserve the best, most secure, and most reliable AI in the world, and our citizens deserve to know it is handled responsibly with… pic.twitter.com/LOpyVI8h8m — Director Michael Kratsios (@mkratsios47) June 5, 2026 The timing is important. This was not a stray tech comment in a vacuum. It came the same week the White House moved aggressively on AI security, AI adoption, and national defense. As the White House explained in its Friday fact sheet: SECURING THE BEST AI IN THE WORLD FOR AMERICA’S DEFENDERS: Today, President Donald J. Trump signed a National Security Presidential Memorandum on Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the National Security Enterprise, establishing a new framework to put the most advanced, secure, and reliable AI systems into the hands of America’s warfighters and intelligence professionals while ensuring their responsible use. The Memorandum strengthens national security capabilities, directing the rapid onboarding of the most advanced AI models from multiple vendors, driving the buildout of next-generation, high-security computing facilities to run future AI systems at scale, and bolstering the talent pipeline, including by establishing an AI National Security Strategic Reserve of top non-governmental experts. The Memorandum directs the Secretary of War to issue an updated directive on autonomy in weapon systems and requires annual review of key guidance across the national security enterprise to keep pace with the rapidly advancing AI frontier. The Memorandum directs departments and agencies to ensure that no entity, commercial or otherwise, can disable, degrade, or modify an AI system that American warfighters depend on without prior approval. It also offers new partnerships with willing private-sector companies to secure America’s cutting-edge AI against global threats. The Memorandum rescinds and replaces the Biden Administration’s NSM-25, an outdated document that burdened American AI adoption with ideological mandates and fostered dangerous single-vendor dependencies that left our warfighters exposed. That is the national-security side of the move. But the money side may be what ordinary Americans notice first. NOTUS previously reported that senior U.S. officials had preliminary discussions with major AI companies about the government acquiring shares in their firms. Reuters said Trump’s Friday comments came after a reporter asked him about that reporting. Axios also reported that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has pushed the idea with the administration over the past year. There is no final deal yet, and the details would matter enormously. A small public stake, a dividend-style structure, a sovereign wealth fund, or some other mechanism would all raise different political, legal, and market questions. But Trump is clearly tying two themes together: America must lead the AI race, and Americans should benefit when that race produces historic wealth. President Trump’s June 2 executive order laid out the separate frontier-model review track: Advanced AI capabilities make our Nation stronger, but also introduce new national security considerations that require coordinated action across executive departments and agencies (agencies), and components. As these capabilities evolve, my Administration will continue to work closely with industry to ensure that the best and most secure technology is deployed rapidly to confront any and all threats to our country. We will continue to lead an America First cybersecurity effort that enhances both our national security and our global AI dominance. It is the policy of the United States to promote AI innovation and security by working collaboratively with the private sector to modernize government and private sector information systems and harden them against external threats; to protect American ingenuity and intellectual property from exploitation and theft by adversaries; and to cultivate America’s advanced AI-enabled capabilities. Within 60 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of War, through the Director of NSA, and the Secretary of Homeland Security, through the Director of CISA, in consultation with the White House Chief of Staff, through the National Cyber Director, the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology (APST), and the Secretary of Commerce, through the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and in coordination with other agencies, as appropriate, shall: develop and maintain a classified benchmarking process to assess the advanced cyber capabilities of AI models and determine the threshold at which an AI model should be designated a “covered frontier model” for the purposes of this order, sharing such assessments with AI developers and researchers as appropriate. design a voluntary framework with AI developers through which developers would be able to: engage the Federal Government to determine whether model(s) under development meet the designation of “covered frontier model”; provide the Federal Government with access to covered frontier models, subject to appropriate confidentiality, cybersecurity, insider-risk, and intellectual-property protection, use, and nondisclosure requirements, for a period of up to 30 days before they plan to release such models to other trusted partners; and collaborate with the Federal Government to select trusted partners that will have early access to covered frontier models to promote secure innovation and strengthen the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure. That framework is voluntary, and the order says it does not create a mandatory licensing or preclearance regime for new AI models. That distinction matters because the Trump team is trying to move fast without handing the permanent bureaucracy a choke point over American innovation. At the same time, the White House is telling the tech industry that AI cannot become a black box controlled by a few private companies with no public benefit and no national-security accountability. The new national-security memorandum also put civil liberties and command accountability into the text: Adaptation. The national security enterprise shall adapt commercial or open-source AI technologies, leveraging the most cutting-edge capabilities available from diverse suppliers across the private sector, large and small, while ensuring that AI technologies chosen are optimized for their intended use. Assurance. The national security enterprise shall assure that all AI technologies adopted are designed to be reliable, robust, steerable, and controllable, and that they operate, in accordance with applicable laws, government policies, and guidance. To protect American warfighters, the national security enterprise shall ensure, through contractual clauses or other means, that no commercial entity or adversary possesses the capability to prevent use of, disable or degrade, or materially modify without Federal Government knowledge and approval, an AI system that our men and women depend on for their missions. Accountability. American AI technologies shall neither be developed nor used by the national security enterprise to censor free speech, embed ideological bias, or conduct unauthorized or unlawful surveillance activities. The use of AI by the national security enterprise must always be consistent with United States civil liberties and protections afforded by the Constitution and laws and regulations safeguarding the privacy of American citizens. Commanders, directors, and heads of agencies shall remain responsible and accountable for ensuring that these obligations are met at every level of command, and that such accountability keeps pace with the evolution of AI capabilities and regulations governing the privacy and civil liberties of American citizens. So the emerging Trump posture is bigger than one possible public-equity idea. It is a broader attempt to keep America ahead of China, keep the military equipped with the best tools, keep woke bias and unlawful surveillance out of national-security AI, and keep the American people from being shut out of the economic upside. There will be plenty of fighting over how this would work. The AI companies will want flexibility. Populists will want a visible public return. Congress may want a say if any ownership or dividend structure moves from idea to policy. But the signal from President Trump is unmistakable. America is going to build the AI future, and he wants the American people inside the deal. This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.