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**SPEAKER_2** (0:02)
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio, news. Bloomberg Tech is live from the heart of Silicon Valley with Ed Ludlow in San Francisco.

**Ed Ludlow** (0:22)
This is Bloomberg Tech coming up. OpenAI held early stage discussions about giving the US government a 5% equity stake according to reports. We had the details, plus Tesla's delivery numbers jumped 25% from a year ago, beating Wall Street's expectations by a wide margin. And we're joined by Judson Althoff, CEO of Microsoft's commercial business to talk, forward, deploy engineers. Let's get to our top story. OpenAI has held early stage discussions about potentially giving the US government a 5% equity stake. That's according to a report in the Financial Times. CEO Sam Altman is said to have held discussions with President Trump, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US Treasury Secretary Scott Besson.
Bloomberg Senior Tech Editor Mike Shepard is with us from DC. Again, this is an FT report. Bloomberg has not yet verified that reporting or done its own report.
But the idea of stakes in technology companies and specifically in frontier labs has come up with this administration. Let's start by recapping what's in that FT report.

**Mike Shepard** (1:32)
Well, looking at the FT report, the biggest headline in it is the 5% stake. You know, this is an idea that has come up before. Even President Donald Trump has indicated he embraced at least a vision for giving the government a piece of the action in these companies. But he hasn't gone into specifics. And they never really talked about just how much the government would actually acquire or hold in these ventures. But the 5% is new. It's unclear, Ed, how advanced these discussions are with the government.
Sam Altman was here in Washington last month, where he met with some administration officials and brought the idea up again. It also came up during a visit to Capitol Hill. And this was an idea that was floated by OpenAI to the administration back in early 2025 So it's been kicking around. And back in early 2025, you'll remember the president did sign that executive order trying to set the stage for creating a sovereign wealth fund. That proposal hasn't really gained much traction here. It's quite complex and probably would need Congress to get involved.

**Ed Ludlow** (2:38)
At that time, in February 2025, the president was saying, well, many other nations have a sovereign wealth fund. The United States should have one. And he specifically talked about the idea that that would be the vehicle for a US-staking TikTok. That was the case study, I think, that the president gave. In the FT report, there is a broader idea, which is, it seems to be the pitch from OpenAI to the US government is, the US government should do this with a broad range of AI companies, but they're not named.

**Mike Shepard** (3:07)
Well, that's right, they took pains not to name the companies, but it is an idea that Sam Altman has been pushing. And it's really, let's say, a sovereign wealth fund, but more a public benefit fund. And that's akin to a proposal we've also seen from Bernie Sanders, who has called for and even proposed legislation that would put a one-time 50% tax on the top AI labs using their stock and then taking the proceeds to seed this public benefit fund. And the idea would be twofold. The goal would be to get the government at least some skin in the game to feel like it has some responsibility in the development of this technology, but then also to use the fund to redistribute the benefits of AI more equitably across the society. And address some of the concerns that we have seen raised, especially recently with the oncoming wave of IPOs from OpenAI and Anthropic, that perhaps there could be a new generation of billionaires minted from this, and increasing the gap between the rich and the poor in this country.

**Ed Ludlow** (4:10)
Bloomberg Tech has gone out to OpenAI, the other AI labs, the US government to comment on this story. Haven't heard back yet. Bloomberg's Mike Sheppard, thank you very much indeed. And Thropic may be the latest AI company designing its own chips. The information reports that the start up is in early talks with Samsung to manufacture a custom AI processor. It's the latest sign AI companies are looking to diversify beyond Nvidia as demand for computing power continues to search. Again, we'll track that story. Staying with chips is not just AI companies rethinking their supply chains. Apple is also exploring new sources for critical components. According to sources, the companies in talks to buy memory chips from two Chinese suppliers that are on the Pentagon's blacklist for use in devices that are sold in China. The discussions are ongoing, and no deal has been finalized for more. Bloomberg's Maggie Eastland with us also in DC.