Anthropic and the Trump administration deny talks on a government stake in the company

The Trump administration and Anthropic on July 3, 2026 denied reports of talks to hand the US government a stake in the AI company. A Reuters source familiar with the situation confirmed that no such discussions took place between the parties.

What triggered the wave of denials?

The same day, July 3, 2026, the Financial Times published a report that OpenAI had offered Washington 5% of its shares. According to the outlet, a similar scheme could potentially be applied to other major AI players. The offer was an unprecedented signal: one of the largest private AI labs voluntarily offered the state a position as shareholder, not just as regulator or customer.

Against this backdrop, questions naturally arose about Anthropic, the developer of the Claude family of models and one of OpenAI's main competitors in the US market. The company is one of the top three developers of foundation AI models and is known for its focus on AI safety. Anthropic and the Trump administration issued denials almost simultaneously: no talks about government participation in the company's capital have taken place, and none are under way.

• July 3, 2026: Reuters published the denial, citing a source familiar with the situation
• The same day, the Financial Times reported that OpenAI had offered the US government 5% of its shares
• Anthropic and the White House rejected the existence of similar talks with the company
• Anthropic is an independent American AI developer and the creator of the Claude family of models

The speed of the denial, issued the same day the FT report appeared, points to how sensitive the topic is: any link between a company and state equity participation is read as a major signal to the market and investors.

Why did the idea of a government stake in AI emerge at all?

The Trump administration has consistently made technological leadership a national priority and is actively looking for ways to secure strategic control over critical technologies. AI sits at the center of this strategy, from semiconductor manufacturing to diplomatic agreements on AI standards. In that context, direct state participation in the capital of leading AI companies looks less like an oddity and more like one of the real instruments of influence.

OpenAI's offer, if accurate, changes the usual logic of relations between government and private business in the tech sector. Previously, the government influenced AI companies through regulation, tax regimes and public contracts. An equity stake is a fundamentally different mechanism: the state becomes financially interested in the company's growing value. For a lab, that means both access to political weight and potential limits on its independence in making strategic decisions.

"The

Trump administration and Anthropic did not discuss giving the government a stake in the company," — Reuters, July 3, 2026.

The fact that Anthropic has to publicly deny a hypothetical deal is telling in itself: government participation in AI is treated as a realistic scenario that demands an official response.

What this means

The public denials reduce the likelihood of such a deal with Anthropic in the short term. However, the precedent set by the OpenAI episode remains. The question of the state's role in the capital of strategically important AI companies is no longer theoretical: it is already being discussed at the level of the largest players and officials. How the balance between government influence and the independence of AI labs will look is one of the key technology policy questions for the coming years.