Depending on who you ask, A.I. was The financial growth story of 2025. In the first nine months of 2025, AI-related spending accounted for about 38 percent of real GDP growth across the United States, according to analysis By the St. Louis Fed.
Not every economist agrees with that math, but the Trump administration has clearly done enough to know where they stand. Bolstering an otherwise collapsing economy with AI is just the thing to spur a perceived wave of innovation And Helping the Pentagon choose who to bomb next stands to reason that the Feds would want to keep the technology on a short leash.
If recent events are any indication, this bond is becoming even tighter. Take, for example, the ongoing dispute between AI firm Anthropic and the Department of Defense — a conflict that suggests that Uncle Sam has stopped asking the tech industry for what it wants, and started taking it.
This has sparked a new round of fears and discussions among AI industry leaders, some of whom are not complaining about the looming threat of nationalization.
For example, Palantir CEO Alex Karp had some harsh criticism for his industry colleagues at OpenAI and ChatGPT: “If Silicon Valley believes we’re going to take everyone’s white collar jobs… and (say) ‘screw the military’… If you don’t think this will nationalize our technology – you’re retired***ed,” he thought At the recent a16z summit, he underlined his point with a slur against people with disabilities.
“Good point,” xAI founder Elon Musk raised his voice On social media.
Over the weekend, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman expressed his opinion In the long term, the threat of nationalization is to be expected. “I have long felt that it would be better if the creation of AGI (artificial general intelligence) were a government project,” he said.
“I don’t know obviously,” Altman added, adding that he “has certainly thought about it…it doesn’t seem very likely on the current trajectory.”
on one recent episode of hard fork podcastHosts Casey Newton and Kevin Roose explore the implications of nationalization and the stance of AI industry leaders on the matter.
“Some people I consider quite serious and credible have been talking about this threat of nationalization for many years,” Ruiz said. “So I guess my concern… is that we’re going through an early dress rehearsal for something that looks and feels like nationalization of AI companies.”
“(Altman) doesn’t want the United States government to come in and nationalize AI companies, at least not right now,” Newton agreed. “And so perhaps if OpenAI could reach some kind of agreement that would provide at least some protections for Americans and other AI companies would sign on to it, that would reduce the pressure on the industry overall.”
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