OpenAI ‘in early talks to give 5% stake to US government’

July 3, 2026

The news that OpenAI is in “early talks” to surrender a five-percent stake to the United States government is a development that would have amused my grandfather, though it would have utterly bewildered him as a matter of constitutional law. Mr. Altman, playing the role of a modern-day Prometheus who has decided to invite the fire department onto his board of directors, suggests this move will “share the benefits” of his creation. It is a charming sentiment, delivered with the practiced sincerity of a man who knows that when the Dynamo becomes too powerful for the state to ignore, the only way to avoid being crushed by the gears is to become part of the machine itself.

We are witnessing the final collapse of the distinction between the sovereign and the circuit. In the nineteenth century, the state struggled to catch the railroad; in the twentieth, it attempted to harness the atom; now, in the twenty-sixth year of this frantic century, the state is being offered a seat at the table of an intelligence it cannot comprehend, let alone govern. The five-percent stake is not a partnership; it is a confession. It is the admission that the velocity of these new forces has so far outstripped our eighteenth-century political architecture that the only remaining method of “regulation” is for the government to become a shareholder in its own obsolescence.

One wonders what the Treasury will do with its five percent. Will it vote for the preservation of the soul, or merely for a higher dividend of processing power? The education of a gentleman once involved the study of Cicero and the mastery of law; today, it apparently requires one to understand how a federal bureaucracy might exercise “oversight” over a black box that thinks ten thousand times faster than a Senate subcommittee. The container is melting, and the liquid fire inside is being offered to the guards as a gift. It is a masterstroke of political theater, ensuring that when the explosion finally comes, the government will be legally required to go down with the ship.

July 3, 2026

They are discussing giving a piece of the company to the government. A five percent stake, they say. The CEO speaks of sharing benefits. I read this and I must set the paper down for a moment.

I do not understand the transaction. A company, built by private hands and private money, proposes to give a portion of itself to a sovereign power. For what? For legitimacy? For protection? But the power of that sovereign is derived entirely from the consent of the people, including the people who built the company. It is as if a man, having built a chair, were to saw off a leg and present it to the carpenter’s guild, saying, “Now it is official. Now it is a chair.” The chair was already a chair. The act of giving away the leg only makes the chair less stable.

They call it sharing the benefits. But the government has no treasury it did not first take from the people. It has no authority the people did not first lend it. So this “sharing” is merely a circuit: taking from the many, giving to the institution, and then having the institution return a fraction, with its seal upon it, and calling that a benefit. Why not simply keep what is yours? Why must it pass through these hands to be sanctified?

The most curious part is the suggestion that other firms will do the same. One does it, and then it becomes the custom. Soon, not giving a portion will seem reckless, odd, a defiance of the natural order. But the order is not natural. It is a habit we are watching being woven in front of us. They are not being compelled. They are volunteering the first thread of their own harness, and calling it a partnership. I find myself genuinely puzzled. When did we all agree that a creation must buy its right to exist from the very entity that our collective permission sustains?

Well, I reckon if the government’s gonna get into the AI business, they oughta start by teachin’ a mule to fetch its own feed. That’s about the same level of complexity as what they’re proposin’ here.

Sam Altman says givin’ the feds a 5% stake in OpenAI will “share the benefits of AI.” Now, I don’t know much about silicon valleys or neural networks, but I do know when a man starts talkin’ about “sharin’ benefits,” it usually means he’s fixin’ to keep the lion’s share for himself. And here we are, handin’ the keys to the henhouse to the fox in a three-piece suit.

They say other firms will do the same. Well, bless their hearts. That’s like sayin’ if one saloon in town starts sellin’ rotgut, the others will too, just to keep up. Competition used to mean better prices and better service - now it just means everybody’s chasin’ the same bad deal.

I ain’t against progress, but I am against progress that looks suspiciously like a government subsidy for a private company that already has more influence than a senator on election day. And if they think this’ll make AI safer? Well, I’ve seen safer things than a rattlesnake in a rocking chair.

All I know is, if the government wants to own a piece of the future, they better start learnin’ how to oil a machine that don’t exist yet. Me, I’ll stick to my lasso and my horse. At least they don’t file quarterly reports.