I'm planning on running OpenWRT on a Dell Optiplex 5050 Micro in a virtual machine, and I'm looking for the most ideal WiFi card.
And it can't be a USB adapater.
Use an external purpose built ap. It will provide much better performance than almost any m.2 card in AP mode.
Beyond that, Using WiFi in a virtual machine is tough even with cards that are well supported. The virtualized environment usually adds a lot of complications.
Finally, I don’t think there are any WiFi 7 cards currently supported. WiFi 6e has a few, but you can count them on one hand, if I am not mistaken.
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yea that was the plan down the road later this year 
I'm currently just re-purposing my old Optiplex.
Guess I'll just look for a compatible WiFi 5/6 card.
Any recommendations for that?
Don't.
As @psherman said, use dedicated hw, it'll be cheaper than your 5/6 wifi card anyway.
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I understand.
I was hoping to have some fun with it.
I really wanted to replicate this guy’s portable networking device:
It looked fun.
I honestly don’t need anything fast. It just looked fun to do.
But it seems that I’d have an easier time setting this up with a Pi. I have a few lying around since I converted a whole bunch of them into VMs.
If you click the video notes it lists the exact model they got working.
Looks fun if repurposing the computer isn't a waste of resources.
It's not impossible, just not worth it, considering the prices of proper wifi devices.