In light of Gates’ comment, let’s take a look at the companies in which the Trump government currently owns equity shares:
Bill Gates has pointed out the growing concern over Donald Trump‘s administration picking up more and more equity stakes in private American companies, saying that the habit would end up rewarding ownership over engineering.
Speaking to CNBC, the Microsoft cofounder said that the trouble starts when the government starts favouring companies it partly owns over rivals with better technology.
“Government operates best when it’s kind of predictable,” Gates told CNBC, as he asserted that companies need to know what tariffs will look like for the next 20 years before they starts pouring billions into a plant.
“Is Washington helping a nascent technology for the good of the country and treating all companies equally, or is it building a portfolio it then wants to protect?” Gates questioned. He added that the rules of the game were “pretty unclear” right now.
In light of Gates’ comment, let’s take a look at the companies in which the Trump government currently owns equity shares:
Intel
In August 2025, the US government took a 9.9% stake in Intel — paying $20.47 a share for $8.9 billion worth of stock, according to a Times of India report.
Since then, the holding has quadrupled in paper value to $36 billion.
Quantum Computing Firms
In May, the US federal government’s Commerce Department lined up $2 billion in equity, across nine quantum computing firms:
- $1 billion going to Albany-based Anderson, Intel’s quantum chip foundry
- $375 million to GlobalFoundries, for a 1% slice
- $100 million to D-Wave
- $100 million to Rigetti
- $100 million to PsiQuantum
- $100 million to Atom Computing
- $100 million to Quantinuum
- $38 million to Diraq
In Critical Minerals
Apart from tech and chip manufacturing units, the US government has also invested heavily in rare-earth metals. The US government owns:
roughly 15% of MP Materials,
10% of USA Rare Earth through a $1.6 billion debt-and-equity package,
10% of Korea Zinc’s Tennessee smelter joint venture,
10% of Trilogy Metals with warrants for another 7.5%, and
5% of Lithium Americas
The US government is also in talks to buy a stake in Greenland’s Tanbreez deposit, run by Critical Metals.
Artificial Intelligence Companies
President Trump is now turning to AI, evident from his recent call to meet top AI executives, including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to discuss “giving something back to the public.”
On the one hand, OpenAI‘s Sam Altman has been floating the idea of ‘Public Wealth Fund’ since 2021, where AI firms would donate equity to a government-run vehicle that pays dividends to the public.
On the other hand, Senator Bernie Sanders has proposed a one-time 50% tax paid in stock.
According to CNBC, Altman and Trump have been in talks about a possible OpenAI stake for over a year.
