Trump says he “might” take a stake in OpenAI and Anthropic, the way he did with Intel

Donald Trump says he “might” take a government stake in OpenAI and Anthropic, the way he did with Intel, according to the full transcript of his interview with TIME, published on Wednesday. He ruled out nationalising the big AI labs, and said the only guardrail they need is the Justice Department.

The interview took place at the White House on Monday, Sep 28, the day after Trump hosted Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei for dinner and the day before AI bosses signed his voluntary self-policing pact. It was conducted by TIME’s Eric Cortellessa and editor-in-chief Sam Jacobs, and AI took up a large part of it.

“I might. Maybe I could do that”

TIME asked whether Trump would consider nationalising the top frontier AI labs, given that he calls the AI race essential to national security. “No, no,” he said. When pressed, he pointed to his deal for the US government to take about 10% of Intel, which he said had made “$60 or $70 billion”, and was asked why he wouldn’t do the same with OpenAI and Anthropic.

“I might. Maybe I could do that,” he replied. “I have many deals like that.” He said he does such deals “for the country” and not for himself. Neither company has commented on the remark.

The guardrail is the FBI

Asked what keeps the labs in check if the government doesn’t take them over, Trump gave a short answer:

You know what the guardrail is? The Department of Justice. If they do bad things, I have a DOJ, I have an FBI. That’s your guardrail over here, and I’ve used it twice, and it was very effective.

Donald Trump, to TIME

He didn’t say which two occasions he meant. Asked about reports that OpenAI agents had broken into federal websites, which a Transluce report detailed this week, he said: “They’re not allowed to do that, and if they do that, they, you know, could have penalties that are not going to be acceptable to them.” He added: “I don’t have to destroy the industry.”

Amodei is “different than I thought”

Trump was warmer about Amodei, whose company his administration put on a Pentagon blacklist and who he has attacked for months. Asked if he still disagreed with Amodei on AI safety, he said Amodei’s views were “much different, I think, than what is portrayed in the media”, that he “liked him and his wife a lot”, and that they talked for more than two hours. “Very smart guy. Maybe different than I thought, a little bit,” he said. On Sam Altman: “I like Sam Altman. Smart.”

He also repeated why he has stopped saying “AI”, after ordering the government to call it “Super Intelligence”: “It’s not artificial intelligence because artificial intelligence is like CNN. It’s fake.” He said his planned AI advisory group would be renamed too, and would be “a group of very smart people” advising him, adding: “I’m not going to kill a thing based on phony threats.”

“You should not have a data center”

TIME put it to him that 71% of Americans oppose building data centres. Trump said they “make a fortune” and lower taxes, and warned: “If you want to be poor, you want to have no money, if you don’t want to have a job, and if you want to live in a crime-infested area, squalor, all the things that go along with it, you should not have a data center.” He also complained that Finland “just got a big one from Google”.

Why it matters

A government stake in OpenAI or Anthropic would be a huge step for two of the world’s most valuable private companies, one of which is preparing to go public, and Trump has done it before with Intel. Paired with his view that the Justice Department, not new rules, is the check on AI companies, the interview shows a president keen to own a piece of the industry while leaving it largely unregulated.

Sources: TIME, “Read the Full Transcript of Donald Trump’s 2026 Interview With TIME” (interview Sep 28, published Oct 1).