President Donald Trump told reporters he had a meeting locked in with the biggest names in artificial intelligence to discuss the government taking ownership stakes in their companies. There was just one problem — nobody had told the companies.
Leading AI companies were "blindsided" by Trump's announcement Friday that he planned to meet with "all the big" firms about taking "pieces" of their companies, "possibly as soon as next week," three sources told NOTUS.
"I actually have a meeting scheduled in the very short, in the very near future, with — did you know that? — all of the companies," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. "And we're talking about it, where the American people can benefit from the success of AI."
The executives learned about the meeting from the president's public comments, not from the White House, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity. As of Monday afternoon, the administration had provided no details on timing or location.
Trump framed the idea in populist terms. "There's something very interesting about it, where it almost becomes a partnership with the American public," he said. "It would be a beautiful thing."
But the proposal — which would rank among the most consequential federal interventions in the private sector in modern history — has drawn sharp pushback, including from within Trump's own party.
When Trump took a 10% stake in Intel in August 2025, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) fired back on X: "If socialism is government owning the means of production, wouldn't the government owning part of Intel be a step toward socialism? Terrible idea."
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) told CBS: "For so many of my self-described true conservatives, you're going to have to explain to me how this reconciles with true conservatism and true free-market capitalism. I don't see it."
Even Trump's former AI czar, David Sacks, pushed back against the idea. "Nationalization of AI will accelerate the corporate-government fusion we're already sliding toward," Sacks wrote on X. "America won't win the AI race if we beat China but end up with a CCP-style social credit system in the U.S."
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman first pitched the idea of giving Trump shares in his company in early 2025, NOTUS reported. But Anthropic — now the world's most valuable AI company at a $965 billion valuation — had not yet discussed the concept as of last week, according to a fourth source. Spokespeople for OpenAI, Anthropic, SpaceX, and Google all declined to comment.