OpenAI Partners US Gov: Models for $1, Trump's AI Plan
OpenAI has announced a landmark partnership with the US government, making its advanced frontier models available to federal employees. Under the terms of the agreement, government agencies can access OpenAI’s leading artificial intelligence systems for a nominal fee of $1 for the next year, a detail revealed in a joint announcement from the company and the General Services Administration (GSA). This collaboration represents the culmination of months of strategic engagement between OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, other company executives, and the Trump administration, initiated even before President Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January.
Evidence of these efforts dates back to at least May, with high-ranking OpenAI personnel reportedly holding meetings with the GSA and other federal entities, including the Food and Drug Administration, to showcase their AI tools. Further underscoring this deepening relationship, OpenAI chief operating officer Brad Lightcap and other executives were invited to an exclusive after-party hosted by the Hill and Valley Forum in Washington, DC, on July 23. The guest list for this event, according to an invitation obtained by this publication, also included several government officials involved in AI policy, such as Akash Bobba and Edward Coristine from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), alongside representatives from Meta Superintelligence Labs and Palantir. It remains unconfirmed whether Lightcap attended the gathering.
This partnership follows a broader move by the GSA, which, on Tuesday, added three prominent AI models—Anthropic’s Claude, Google’s Gemini, and OpenAI’s ChatGPT—to its federal purchasing list, thereby enabling government agencies to procure and utilize these powerful tools. This initiative aligns with President Trump’s AI Action Plan, which prioritizes accelerating AI innovation across the United States. Coinciding with this development, OpenAI also unveiled two new “open-weight” models—its first such release since 2019. These models, whose underlying code is publicly accessible, can be deployed locally and customized for specific applications, a feature particularly attractive for government agencies requiring stringent data security protocols.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a brainchild of Elon Musk, has been instrumental in fast-tracking government AI initiatives, including the launch of its own AI chatbot, GSAi. At the Department of Housing and Urban Development, a DOGE operative has reportedly been leveraging AI tools to streamline and rewrite agency regulations, demonstrating the practical application of these technologies within federal operations. Neither OpenAI nor the GSA provided immediate comments when contacted for this report.
The growing interest of American AI giants in collaborating with the US government has been a notable trend in recent months. Shortly after President Trump’s inauguration, he announced “Stargate,” a significant new data center infrastructure project from OpenAI, with Altman standing by his side at the White House during the announcement. In May, Altman and other AI executives also accompanied Trump on a diplomatic trip to the Middle East, where they unveiled a series of business agreements seemingly designed to advance US foreign policy objectives.
For AI companies, federal agencies represent a vast repository of data that could be immensely valuable, though OpenAI has publicly stated that interactions with federal employees will not be used to train ChatGPT. Conversely, US government departments are increasingly viewing generative AI as a transformative solution to modernize operations, enhance system efficiencies, and improve service delivery. Agencies like the Department of Defense, with its proposed 2026 fiscal year budget of $1.01 trillion—a 13.4 percent increase—stand as potentially enormous customers, signaling a significant shift towards AI integration within the nation’s most critical sectors.