US stocks are national destiny; Trump is turning the United States into a fund

Author: Jia Liu, Upbeat Beatz

On the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, Trump is turning America into a fund.

Last Monday, a few minutes before U.S. stocks opened, Trump sat in the Oval Office with a camera set in front of him. The opening bells of the NYSE and Nasdaq were connected to the White House, where he rang them remotely. When the bells rang, he faced the camera and said that as the opening bells sounded, these accounts would grow along with our booming economy—just this week alone, $800 million in new capital would be put into the stock market for America’s children.

This is the first trading day after the “Trump accounts” went live. On July 4, two days earlier—on the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence—he gave the nation’s newborns a birthday gift: an investment account named after him, stocked with $1,000, that automatically buys U.S. stocks. 6 million children completed registration before the launch.

In the same week, his Treasury was handling another issue: $39 trillion in U.S. government debt—next fiscal year alone, over $1 trillion must be paid in interest, averaging $170 million per day. Every day, the Treasury has to figure out how to repay the interest left behind from the day before.

Over the past 18 months, this real-estate developer-turned-president has done three things that seemingly have nothing to do with each other: the government taking equity stakes in companies directly, opening investment accounts for newborns, and seeking equity in AI companies—but they point to the same goal: to deeply bind U.S. stocks with the nation’s fate.

America’s $39 trillion eagle-debt

The starting point of this chess game isn’t ambition—it’s anxiety.

As of May 2026, the total size of U.S. government debt has surpassed $39 trillion, edging toward $40 trillion. The debt burden has already exceeded the size of the entire U.S. economy; the debt-to-GDP ratio is about 123%. About $5 billion in new debt is added every day. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that in fiscal year 2026, interest spending alone will exceed $1 trillion, accounting for nearly 14% of total federal outlays—higher than the defense budget. For every $1 the federal government takes in, it has to spend $1.33. Huatai Securities estimates the federal deficit in fiscal year 2026 could reach $2.2 trillion, with the deficit ratio rising to 7%.

To address the anxiety over U.S. debt, there are three traditional solutions: raising taxes, cutting spending, or “inflating” the debt—allowing prices to rise to dilute the real value of the debt.

Before the midterm elections, the first two solutions are tantamount to political suicide, so the Trump administration would obviously not consider them. The third solution, however, requires the cooperation of the Federal Reserve, the U.S. central bank, to cut rates. Yet even if former Fed chair Powell was threatened by Trump and forced into legal battles to get into trouble, he still refused to bow. If current chair Waller were to announce rate cuts directly under the current economic conditions, it would clearly look very bad.

So Trump needs to find a new road.

And we all know Trump’s way of solving problems comes from the business world he worked in for a lifetime. Real-estate people look at balance sheets differently than politicians do: if you can’t touch the liability side, then you make the asset side bigger. On America’s government balance sheet, the $39 trillion liabilities are crystal clear and unmistakable. But the asset side is a fog—there are almost no financial assets that the federal government owns that can be marked to market at market prices.

So Trump’s solution is to treat the powers the government already holds—subsidies, grants, government contracts, export controls, and regulatory authority—as costs and bargaining chips, and to get low-cost equity stakes in big companies.

The first company Trump pulled wool from was Intel.

On August 22, 2025, the U.S. government announced it would exchange $8.9 billion for a 9.9% stake in Intel, one of the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturers. At $20.47 per share, it instantly became the chip giant’s largest single shareholder. The elegance of the deal lay in the source of funds: $5.7 billion came from the Chips and Science Act (“CHIPS Act”), which had already been approved in 2022 and was originally supposed to be paid to Intel as subsidies; $3.2 billion came from federal grants under the secure chip program. In other words, the government didn’t put up a single new dollar—what it gave was essentially “the check that would have been handed over for free,” and in return it got a meaningful amount of equity.

Trump himself was also very proud. On his social platform Truth Social, he announced in all capital letters: “I paid Intel zero dollars. It’s worth about $11 billion, all to the United States.”

Later, when he discussed the deal at a public event, he mentioned the negotiation process with Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger. Gelsinger is a Malaysian-born American of Chinese descent and became Intel CEO in March 2025. Before that, he served as CEO for 12 years at the chip design software company Cadence. Trump said Intel agreed too easily—“It should’ve been more.” Some criticized this as shameful; his response was, “There’s nothing shameful about it. That’s called business.” When asked whether taking equity stakes in private companies would become the norm, he answered, “Don’t tariffs do that too?”

Perhaps to commemorate this decent start, White House economic adviser Hassett also gave the transaction a name: “the down payment on a sovereign wealth fund.”

A sovereign wealth fund is an institution where governments invest public funds as long-term capital. Singapore and Abu Dhabi have them; they usually rely on oil or resource income, and the U.S. has never had one. In February 2025, Trump signed an executive order requiring Commerce Secretary Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Bessent to come up with a formation plan within 90 days. But due to legal, funding, and political resistance, the grand “U.S. sovereign wealth fund” version of the narrative stalled.

But Intel’s transaction clearly sent a signal: the shell of the U.S. sovereign fund wasn’t “created for a clever pretext,” but “the bullets still flew.”

The U.S. government “zero-dollar” seized stakes in at least 20 companies

The effectiveness of Trump’s Intel stake-building proved quickly. Intel’s share price rose more than 50% after the deal closed. By early 2026, the accounting value of the government’s holdings had ballooned to between $35 billion and $63 billion. Trump turned subsidies that were supposed to be spent anyway into hundreds of billions in paper gains.

After “bold assumptions” were made and “careful verification” was done—and confirmed—the next conclusion for a businessman is: reuse it.

After Intel, Trump’s pace of placing orders exceeded everyone’s expectations:

The Department of Defense took a 15% stake in MP Materials, the only company in the U.S. with full capability to mine and process rare earths. The company is based in a mine in California’s Mountain Pass; the DoD became its largest shareholder. A startup developing lithium mines in Nevada—American Lithium—had no revenue at the time, and it also gave up 10%, tying it to a $2.26 billion federal loan restructuring. A Canadian-listed mining company developing copper-zinc mines in Alaska, Trilogy Metals, handed over 10% plus 7.5% in warrants—meaning the government can buy more shares in the future at an agreed price. The cost was a $35.6 million investment. When U.S. Steel was acquired by Japan’s Nippon Steel, it delivered the White House a “golden share” with veto power—not an economic stake, but political power: the president can veto shutting down plants, moving headquarters, or transferring production overseas. L3Harris, a major U.S. defense technology company, got $1 billion for equity; its products cover military communications, satellite and missile systems. Nvidia and AMD—two of the largest chip design companies—were special: they didn’t deliver equity, but instead a 15% revenue share from chip sales to China. By the end of January 2026, another U.S. rare-earth company, USA Rare Earth, was already on the list.

According to statistics from the Cato Institute, a well-known U.S. free-market think tank, this administration has already obtained equity stakes, warrants, or golden shares in more than 20 companies.

In May 2026, Trump’s playbook moved into bulk production. The government announced at once it would inject $2 billion into nine quantum computing companies in exchange for equity. IBM got $1 billion; the remaining shares were split among GlobalFoundries (one of the major chip foundries), D-Wave, Rigetti, Infleqtion, and others. The news sent the whole sector soaring that day: Infleqtion surged more than 33%, D-Wave rose 33%, Rigetti jumped 30%, and even IonQ—an additional quantum computing public company not on the list—still followed up with a 12% gain. In a statement, Lutnick said the Trump administration is leading the world into a new era of U.S.-driven innovation.

On prediction markets, traders began to focus on “who the government will take equity in during 2026.” Currently IonQ has a 32% probability, defense AI unicorn Anduril Industries has 31% (a defense tech company founded by Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey, focused on AI-driven unmanned military systems), and Micron has 28%.

Altman proactively offered $390k in equity

Besides defense, chips, and quantum computing, “White House stock god” Trump would naturally not miss the hottest sector right now: AI.

What’s most interesting is that this time, it was even OpenAI CEO Altman himself who proactively took the initiative—delivering it right to Trump.

Altman speaks at the White House/government venue

According to U.S. political news site NOTUS and the Financial Times, as early as the beginning of 2025, Altman proposed to Trump the idea of the government holding equity in major AI companies, and since then he has met regularly with senior government officials about it. In early June 2026, negotiations were formally disclosed. In early July, the digital numbers hit the press: OpenAI proposed to give the government 5%. Based on an $852 billion valuation after a record financing round in March, this “gift” was worth about $42.6 billion.

And Altman’s full plan is even bigger: not just OpenAI, but every top U.S. AI company would hand over 5% to a government platform institution. The list may include Anthropic, the Claude developer that grew fastest in the enterprise AI market and was founded by former OpenAI’s core team; and the AI companies xAI founded by Google, Meta (the parent of Facebook), and Musk. The revenue model would follow the Alaska Permanent Fund—public funds in Alaska set up with oil revenues that pay dividends to each state resident every year. Altman hopes the AI version would also distribute dividends to the public.

Why would a company preparing one of the largest IPOs in history proactively send $42.6 billion?

Chamath, a well-known Silicon Valley investor and co-host of the All-In podcast, also pointed out this relationship on a recent episode: AI economics are completely different from the internet. In the internet era, adding one more user costs almost nothing; in the AI era, each additional user requires real GPUs, memory, power, and infrastructure. None of those things are what venture capital can provide; they are all held in Washington.

This means AI companies’ dependence on national-level infrastructure is structural, not temporary. And the more you rely on the country’s resources, the heavier the country’s bargaining chips at the negotiation table.

So the relationship between AI companies and the government is no longer as simple as “startups hoping to be less regulated.” They can’t do without government resources, and the government knows it. The old negotiation was: we give you subsidies, you build factories and hire people, you pay taxes. Now the negotiation has turned into: we provide you compute, electricity, orders, and policy certainty—what does the public get in return?

Industry insiders call this 5% “regulatory insurance.” Exchanging equity for a looser environment, it preemptively reduces the risk of nationalization or forced breakup, and also embeds Altman and others deeply into the seats that write AI regulatory rules. Intel’s precedent is right there: after the government took a stake, a chain of deals landed—Nvidia’s $5 billion investment, building the Texas chip plant with Musk, and cooperation with Apple—and the stock price took off.

Government shareholders are not a cost; they are the toughest backstop.

Of course, not everyone thinks like Altman. On the list, there is an obvious absence: Anthropic appears far less willing. According to people familiar with the matter, Anthropic has not discussed selling equity with the government to date.

But if you don’t buy insurance, Trump naturally has to send a message.

Defense Secretary Hegseth announced on X that Anthropic would be listed as a “supply chain risk.” This label had previously only been used for suppliers of foreign hostile forces, never for U.S. companies. All defense contractors were required to provide written assurances that they would not use Claude. Immediately after, Trump posted on Truth Social ordering all federal agencies to “immediately stop” using Anthropic’s technology. Anthropic didn’t bow; on March 9 it sued in both San Francisco and Washington, D.C., accusing the blacklist of unconstitutional retaliation.

Anthropic CEO Amodei at a congressional hearing

With the Intel template, the batch replication from the quantum nine, and the 5% plan proactively submitted by OpenAI, the question “which company will be the next one to be given equity?” has become a real, tangible trading theme on Wall Street. Following the government’s logic for selecting targets, you can map out three tiers.

The first tier is frontier AI model companies. This is the group directly named in Altman’s plan. Besides OpenAI itself, there are Anthropic, xAI, Google, and Meta. Google and Meta are public companies, so technically government shareholding is easier to execute—but politically, the optics are more sensitive. The variable for xAI is Musk himself. His relationship with Trump soured after the DOGE budget-cut project last year run by the government, and they once truly broke; only this year has it been repaired. SpaceX completed an IPO of $86 billion, valuing it at $2.2 trillion. When Trump was asked in a CNBC interview whether Musk would donate SpaceX stock to Trump accounts, Trump replied, “I think he will.” A week later, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell announced that she would donate one share each to the accounts of more than 10k children—about $320 million.

The second tier is AI “foundation” companies. Analysts point out that if private capital can’t keep up with AI’s ever-growing funding needs, the government will next consider which to hold equity in: data center firms providing compute capacity for AI, and energy infrastructure firms supporting it. This layer doesn’t sound as sexy as model companies, but these are exactly where government resources—land, power grids, nuclear power approval, and so on—are most heavily translated, and where the “subsidies for equity” logic is most straightforward.

The third tier is companies already in deals or trading on the order book. After the quantum nine, the prediction market order book points to IonQ, Anduril, and Micron. Anduril is one of the startups with the highest valuations in defense AI; Micron has just donated $250 million to Trump’s account. In this game, donating itself is a form of bidding—an unmistakable signal: I’m on your side, so you should take care of me.

When U.S. stocks become a kind of faith

Looking back at the baby fund, again.

U.S. newborns born between 2025 and 2028: after parents open accounts, the Treasury automatically deposits $1,000. This money is mandatorily invested into an index fund tracking the S&P 500. The default is SPYM, an S&P 500 ETF under State Street with the lowest fee rates; options include IVV, VTI, SPTM, ITOT—all U.S. large-cap or total-market exchange-traded funds traded on major trading platforms, with annual fee caps of 0.10%. Families can add up to $5,000 per year, deducted before taxes, in a way similar to retirement plans. Employer, family, and charitable donations are separate. The money can’t be withdrawn before age 18; once they become adults, the account automatically converts into the most common long-term retirement savings tool in the U.S., the IRA individual retirement account. Bank of New York Mellon handles custody, and a companion app is designed with the participation of Robinhood, one of the largest zero-commission brokerages in the U.S.

An independent fiscal watchdog organization, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, estimates the program will cost about $17 billion by 2028. The government’s own estimate is that the $1,000 will become at least $6,000 by age 18.

Corporate responses are more intriguing than the policy itself. Dell Technologies founders Dell and his wife donated $6.25 billion, covering about 25 million children under age 10 in low-income ZIP code areas, with $250 per child. Micron donated $250 million. Intel and Robinhood donated for employees’ children. BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, and Bank of America matched employee donations. Then there were the more than 390k shares of SpaceX stock mentioned earlier, donated by Shotwell. The Treasury immediately announced that it would accept large charitable donations in the form of publicly traded company shares.

The Trump account doesn’t directly fund AI companies with cash. What it does is something slower and deeper: nurturing a generation with a personal stake in U.S. stocks.

This money may not change a child’s fate. But from the day the child is born, they are a holder of American assets. Twenty years later, when the child looks at U.S. stocks, they won’t see it as rich people’s casino, because their own first pot of wealth is already in it. When the market rises, their account rises; when the market falls, their own money shrinks.

It will greatly cultivate a generation’s belief in “American growth.”

Although this isn’t the start of a new story. U.S. households’ assets have long been welded to U.S. stocks. U.S. employee retirement savings plans like 401(k) automatically deduct a portion of employees’ salaries each month into investment accounts, and combined with pensions, mutual funds, and decades of index-investing waves, it has already stitched together a large share of middle-class retirement savings, children’s education funds, and home equity along the S&P 500 line. But Trump is planting that faith early into the hearts of every American.

If, in the future, Washington truly could get 5% of 30 OpenAI-level companies, using the OpenAI valuation of $852 billion, the whole portfolio would be $1.278 trillion at birth. It’s already enough to cover a year of U.S. debt interest.

But what if the goal isn’t to pay interest, but to fill in the principal of the debt? Then the story instantly turns almost sci-fi: those 30 companies would still need to rise another 25 to 31 times as a whole. In other words, each one would have to grow from today’s OpenAI into a giant economy larger than $2 trillion.

Previously, AI’s wild surges and wild crashes belonged more to founders, venture capitalists, and Wall Street. Now, he wants to distribute more of the upside. The cost is that if a major pullback really happens in the future, volatility could be transmitted more broadly into public finances, household accounts, and political moods.

That’s how U.S. stocks no longer just serve as a barometer of the U.S. economy—they are America’s fate itself.

And that should be the most proud transaction of Trump’s life.