Zero-yuan share options, mandatory entry for newborns: Trump is betting on US stocks
Author: Shang Sheng BeatZ
Original title: US stocks are national transportation. Trump is transforming the US into a fund
On the 250th anniversary of America's founding, Trump is transforming America into a fund.
Last Monday, a few minutes before the US stock market opened, Trump was sitting in an oval office with a camera in front of him. The opening bells for the NYSE and NASDAQ were picked up by the White House and he rang them remotely. As the bell falls, he said to the camera that as the opening bell rings, these accounts will grow along with our booming economy. This week alone, $800 million in new capital will be invested in the stock market for American children.
This is the first trading day since the “Trump Account” went live. Two days ago, on July 4, the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, he gave newborns across the country a birthday present: an investment account named after him, containing $1,000, which automatically bought US stocks. Six million children registered before it went live.
In the same week, his treasury was dealing with another matter: $39 trillion in treasury bonds, which would cost more than $1 trillion in interest alone in fiscal year 2026, averaging $170 million a day. Every day, the Ministry of Finance has to find a way to repay the interest left over from yesterday.
In the past 18 months, the president, a real estate agent, did three ostensibly unrelated things. The government directly took a stake in the company, opened investment accounts for newborns, and competed for shares in AI companies, but they all pointed to the same goal: making US stocks deeply tied to the US national fortune.
Eagles' $39 trillion debt
The starting point of this game of chess is not ambition; it is anxiety.
As of May 2026, total US Treasury bonds surpassed $39 trillion, approaching $40 trillion. The size of the debt already exceeds the size of the US economy as a whole, and debt accounts for about 123% of GDP. Every day, about $5 billion in treasury bonds are added. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that interest expenses alone will exceed $1 trillion in fiscal year 2026, accounting for nearly 14% of total federal spending, which is higher than the defense budget. For every dollar the federal government receives, it costs $1.33. Huatai Securities estimates that the 2026 fiscal year deficit could reach $2.2 trillion, and the deficit rate rose to 7%.
To resolve anxiety about US treasury bonds, there are three traditional solutions: increase taxes, cut spending, and inflate debt, that is, let prices rise to dilute actual debt.
The first two solutions are tantamount to political suicide before the midterm elections, and the Trump administration will definitely not consider them. However, the third solution requires the US central bank, the Federal Reserve, to cooperate in cutting interest rates, and former Chairman Powell never bowed down even when threatened by Trump to find trouble and file a lawsuit. If then-Chairman Walsh directly announced interest rate cuts under the current state of the economy, it would obviously be very unattractive.
So Trump needs to find a new path.
And we all know that Trump's approach to solving problems has always come from the business he has been in business all his life. Real estate agents look at balance sheets in a different way than politicians: if they can't move on the debt side, then expand the asset side. On the US government's balance sheet in the past, 39 trillion dollars of debt was clearly and clearly understood; the asset side was vague, and there were almost no financial assets under the federal government's name that could be priced at market prices.
Therefore, Trump's solution is to first use the powers in the hands of the government: subsidies, grants, government orders, export controls, and regulatory powers as costs and trading bargaining chips, and go to lower-priced shares in large companies.
Intel was the first to be ripped off by Trump.
On August 22, 2025, the US government announced the exchange of 9.9% of Intel, one of the world's largest semiconductor manufacturers, of 9.9% of the shares, at $20.47 per share, making it the chip giant's largest single shareholder. The subtlety of the deal is the source of funding: 5.7 billion from subsidies originally to Intel from the semiconductor industry subsidy bill “Chip Act” passed in 2022, and 3.2 billion from federal funding for secure chip projects. In other words, the government did not pay a single cent of the new money; what it paid was a “check that was supposed to be paid in vain” was exchanged for quite a bit of equity.
Trump himself is also very proud. He announced in full capital letters on his social networking platform Truth Social: “I paid zero dollars for Intel. It's worth about $11 billion, all of which goes to the US.”
Later, in a public discussion about the deal, he mentioned the negotiation process with Intel CEO Chen Liwu. Chen Liwu is a Malaysian Chinese-American who became the CEO of Intel in March 2025, and previously served as CEO of the chip design software company Cadence for 12 years. Trump said Intel was too happy to agree, “It should have wanted more.” Some people criticized this practice as shameful, and his response was “It's not shameful; it's called a business.” Asked if government investment in private companies would become the norm, his answer was, “Aren't tariffs the same?”
Perhaps to mark this good start, White House economic adviser Hassett also named the deal “down payment from a sovereign wealth fund.”
So-called sovereign wealth funds are institutions where the government invests public funds as long-term capital. Singapore and Abu Dhabi have them. They usually accumulate income from oil or resources; the US has never had one. In February 2025, Trump signed an executive order requiring Secretary of Commerce Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Bezent to come up with a plan to form within 90 days, but due to legal, financial, and political resistance, this grand narrative version of the so-called “American sovereign wealth fund” came to a standstill.
However, Intel's deal clearly revealed a sign that the shell of the US Sovereign Fund was not “made up in the name of a coincidence,” but “the bullets flew out.”
The US government bought shares in at least 20 companies for zero dollars
The effectiveness of Trump's position opening with Intel was quickly proven. Intel's stock price has risen by more than 50% since the transaction was completed, and the book value of government holdings swelled to $35 billion to $63 billion by the beginning of 2026. Trump turned a subsidy that would have been spent into tens of billions of dollars in surplus.
After completing “bold assumptions” and “careful proving” and verifying them, the next conclusion of the merchant was to reuse.
After Intel, Trump placed orders faster than anyone expected:
The Department of Defense took 15% of MP Materials, the only company with complete rare earth mining and processing capabilities in the US. The company is located at the Yamaguchi mine in California, making the Department of Defense its largest shareholder. American Lithium, a startup that developed lithium mines in Nevada, had no revenue at the time, and also relinquished 10%, tied up with a $2.26 billion federal loan restructuring. Trilogy Metals, a Canadian-listed mining company that develops copper-zinc mines in Alaska, handed over 10% plus 7.5% warrants, which means that the government has the right to purchase additional shares at an agreed price in the future at a cost of 35.6 million US dollars. When American Steel was acquired by Nippon Steel of Japan, it handed over a “gold stock” to the White House. This is not an economic share, but a political power: the president can veto closing the factory, relocating the headquarters, or transferring production overseas. The rocket engine business of L3Harris, a major US defense technology company, took $1 billion in exchange for shares. The company's products cover military communications, satellites, and missile systems. The two largest chip design companies, Nvidia and AMD, are quite special. They are not handing over shares, but a 15% share of chip sales revenue to China. At the end of January 2026, another US rare earth company, USA Rare Earth, was also included in the list.
According to statistics from the Cato Institute, a well-known free market think tank in the US, this administration has already obtained shares, warrants, or gold shares from more than 20 companies.
In May 2026, Trump's gameplay was further batched. The government announced a one-time investment of $2 billion into nine quantum computing companies in exchange for equity. IBM alone has 1 billion dollars, and quantum startups such as GF (one of the world's major chip foundries), D-Wave, Rigetti, and Infleqtion share the rest. On the day of the news, the sector took off collectively: Infleqtion surged more than 33%, D-Wave rose 33%, Rigetti rose 30%, and even IonQ (another listed quantum computing company), which was not on the list, followed by a 12% increase. Lutnick said in a statement that the Trump administration is leading the world into a new era of American innovation.
On Prediction Market, traders began to focus on “who will be invested by the government in 2026.” Currently, IonQ has a probability of 32%, defense AI unicorn Anduril Industries (defense technology company founded by Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey, focusing on AI-driven military unmanned systems) 31%, and Micron (one of the world's largest memory chip makers) 28%.
Altman offers $42.6 billion in shares
Other than the military, chips, and quantum computing sectors, “White House stock god” Trump will naturally not let go of the hottest sector right now: AI.
The most interesting thing is that OpenAI CEO Altman himself took the initiative to hand it in front of Trump.
Altman speaks at the White House/Government
According to reports from US political news websites NOTUS and the Financial Times, as early as 2025, Altman proposed to Trump the idea of the administration holding shares in major AI companies, and since then, he has regularly confronted senior government officials about this. The negotiations officially came to light in early June 2026. Early July figures were reported: OpenAI proposed a 5% sale to the government. At a valuation of US$852 billion after a record funding round in March, this “gift” is worth around US$42.6 billion.
And Altman's complete plan is even bigger: not just OpenAI, but every top American AI company hands over 5% to a government platform agency. The list may include Claude developer Anthropic, founded by the former core team of OpenAI and the fastest growing enterprise AI market, and xAI, an AI company founded by Google, Facebook parent company Meta, and Musk. The revenue model refers to the Alaska Permanent Fund, which is a public fund set up by Alaska using oil revenue to distribute dividends to residents of every state every year. Altman hopes the AI version can also distribute dividends to the public.
Why did a company that is preparing one of the biggest IPOs in history take the initiative to send 42.6 billion?
Chamath, a well-known investor in Silicon Valley and an All-In podcast host, broke this relationship in a recent episode: The economics of AI are completely different from the internet. In the Internet age, there is almost no cost for one more user; in the AI era, every new user requires a real GPU, memory, power, and infrastructure. None of these things can be given by venture capital; they are all in Washington's hands.
This means that AI companies' reliance on national infrastructure is structural, not phased. And the more you depend on the country's resources, the heavier the country's chips at the negotiation table.
Therefore, the relationship between AI companies and the government is no longer as simple as “startups want to be less regulated.” They are inseparable from government resources, and the government knows this. The negotiations in the past were: you were given a subsidy; you built a factory to recruit people to pay taxes. Now the negotiations have become: give you computing power, electricity, orders, and policy certainty. What will the public get?
The industry refers to this 5% as a “regulatory insurance policy.” Exchange equity for a relaxed environment, mitigate the risk of nationalization or forced division ahead of time, and incidentally, let Altman deeply embed AI regulatory rule-making positions. Intel's precedent is ahead: after the government took stock, Nvidia invested 5 billion US dollars, built a Texas chip factory with Musk, and a partnership with Apple came to fruition one after another, and the stock price took off.
Government shareholders are not costs; they are the hardest backers.
Of course, not everyone was what Altman thought; with one conspicuous absentee on the list, Anthropic seemed less willing. According to people familiar with the matter, Anthropic has not discussed selling shares with the government until now.
But if they don't pay the insurance policy, Trump will naturally have to beat and beat.
Secretary of Defense Hegseth announced on X that Anthropic was classified as a “supply chain risk”. Previously, this label was only used by foreign hostile suppliers; it has never been used by US companies, and all defense contractors must guarantee in writing that they will not use Claude. Trump immediately followed an article on Truth Social ordering all federal agencies to “immediately stop” using Anthropic's technology. Anthropic didn't bow down and sued in both San Francisco and Washington on March 9, alleging that the blacklist was unconstitutional retaliation.
Anthropic CEO Amodei at congressional hearing
With Intel's template, batch copying from Quantum Nine, and the 5% plan voluntarily submitted by OpenAI, “Who is the next company to be invested” has become a real trading theme on Wall Street. Following the government's stock selection logic, three echelons can be drawn.
The first tier is a cutting-edge AI model company. This is a batch of direct names from Altman's plan. In addition to OpenAI itself, there are Anthropic, xAI, Google, and Meta. Google and Meta are publicly traded companies. Technically, government ownership is better at operating, but their political views are more sensitive. The variables for xAI lie with Musk himself. His relationship with Trump fell apart after the DOGE project, which cut the budget last year. It broke down for a while, and was repaired just this year. SpaceX completed a $86 billion IPO with a market capitalization of $2.2 trillion. Trump was asked in a CNBC interview if Musk would donate SpaceX shares to Trump's account and answered, “I think he will.” A week later, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell announced a share each donation of about $320 million to the accounts of more than 2 million children.
The second tier is AI's “foundation” company. Analysts pointed out that if private capital cannot support AI's growing capital requirements, the government will consider holding shares in data center companies and supporting energy infrastructure companies that provide computing power for AI. The names of these companies aren't sexy as model companies, but they are the places where government resources, such as land, power grids, and nuclear power approvals, are the most intensive to implement, and where the “subsidy for equity” logic works best.
The third tier is one that has already traded or is on the market. After Quantum Nine, the prediction market targeted IonQ, Anduril, and Micron. Anduril is one of the highest-valued startups in defense AI; Micron just donated $250 million to Trump's account. In this game, the donation itself is an offer, and the signal is clear: I'm on the line, you take care of me.
When US stocks become a form of belief
Let's take a look at this baby fund again.
For American newborns born between 2025 and 2028, the Treasury automatically deposits $1,000 after the parents open an account. This money is forcibly invested in an index fund that tracks the S&P 500. By default, the target is SPYM, the S&P 500 ETF fund with the lowest rate under State Street. You can choose IVV, VTI, SPTM, ITOT, or all market trading platforms. The maximum annual fee is 0.10%. Families can add up to $5,000 a year, with pre-tax deductions similar to pensions; donations from employers, relatives, and charities are not included. If you can't withdraw it until you're 18, your account will automatically be converted to an IRA personal retirement account, the most common long-term retirement savings tool in the US. Hosted by Bank of New York Mellon, the companion app was designed with the participation of Robinhood, one of the largest zero-commission brokerage firms in the US.
The nonpartisan financial monitoring organization, the “Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget,” estimates that the program will cost around $17 billion by 2028. The government's own caliber is that $1,000 will be at least 6000 by the time the child turns 18.
The company's response was more interesting than the policy itself. Dell Tech founders Dell and his wife donated $6.25 billion to cover approximately 25 million children under 10 in low-income zip codes, $250 each. Micron 250 million. Intel and Robinhood make donations for employees' children. BlackRock, the world's largest asset management company, and Bank of America match employee donations. Then there's Shotwell's more than 2 million SpaceX shares mentioned earlier. The Ministry of Finance immediately announced that it would accept large charitable donations in the form of shares of listed companies.
Trump accounts don't directly give blood transfusions to AI companies. It does another, slower and deeper thing: cultivating a generation of people with a vital interest in US stocks.
This amount of money may not change a child's fate. However, from the day he was born, this child was a holder of American assets. Twenty years from now, when this kid looks at US stocks again, he won't think it's a rich man's casino, because his first fortune is in it. The market is up, his account is rising; the market is falling, and his own money is shrinking.
This will greatly cultivate a generation's belief in “American growth.”
This isn't the beginning of a new story though. The assets of American households have long been tied to American stocks. The US corporate retirement savings plan 401 (k) allows employees to automatically deduct a portion of their monthly salary into investment accounts. Coupled with pensions, mutual funds, and decades of indexed investment, it has strung the pension, children's education fund, and home equity of a large number of middle class families on the S&P 500 line. But Trump implanted this belief into the hearts of every American ahead of time.
Assuming that Washington can actually get 5% of the 30 OpenAI-level companies in the future. Based on OpenAI's valuation of 852 billion US dollars, this combination will be 1.278 trillion US dollars at birth. It's enough to cover interest on a one-year US Treasury bond.
But what if the goal is not to pay interest, but to cover the principal amount of debt? The story immediately became almost sci-fi: the 30 companies would have to increase by another 25 to 31 times as a whole. In other words, every company will have to grow from today's OpenAI to a giant economy of more than 20 trillion dollars.
Previously, AI's crazy rise and fall belonged more to founders, venture capitalists, and Wall Street. Now, he wants to spread the benefits of the rise more widely. The cost is that if there is a sharp pullback in the future, fluctuations may also be spread more widely into public finances, household accounts, and political sentiment.
Just like that, US stocks are no longer just a barometer of the US economy; they are America's national transportation itself.
And this should be the deal Trump is most proud of in his life.
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