OpenAI is in very early talks to hand the U.S. government a 5% equity stake — worth roughly $42 billion at the company’s reported $854 billion valuation — in a move that would make Washington a direct shareholder of the world’s best-known AI lab. CEO Sam Altman has framed the offer as a way to let ordinary Americans share the upside of AI and ease political pressure, and reports say the Trump administration has already approached Google and Meta about...