Bernie Sanders proposes 50% public ownership in AI giants as Trump backs wealth-sharing plans

Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders and Sam Altman are all talking about public ownership in AI

WASHINGTON (AP) -- It was perhaps a surprising private overture from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to Sen. Bernie Sanders. The meeting between the two had come just after the Vermont senator announced a plan for the public to take a 50% ownership stake in artificial intelligence companies such as OpenAI, using their stock to create a public wealth fund that would spread the fortune generated by AI behemoths. Altman told Sanders that he, too, wants the public to have equity in AI companies. Though the CEO said he couldn't support Sanders' threshold of 50%, he nonetheless wanted to work with him to advocate for the general idea, according to people with knowledge of the conversation. The nearly hourlong meeting in Sanders' Senate office this week, held at Altman's request, highlighted the inherent tension between AI powerhouses and policymakers as Americans are increasingly asked to accept the costs of the AI boom even as they remain unconvinced of its direct benefits. Yet it's also creating odd political bedfellows fueled by populism as politicians from Sanders to President Donald Trump embrace giving the public a stake in AI's growth. Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Friday, Trump described a potential partnership "where the American people can benefit from the success of AI" and said executives from leading AI companies will visit the White House, "probably next week," to discuss the idea. "There's something very interesting about it, where it almost becomes a partnership with the American public," Trump, a Republican, said Friday. When reporters noted to Trump that Sanders, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist, had proposed public ownership in AI companies, he pointed to similarities in their coalitions. The economic views of Trump voters and voters who supported Sanders for president, Trump said, "aren't that far apart." Trump has embraced government investment in private companies in his second term, scrambling his party's politics. His administration last year secured a 10% stake in the struggling Silicon Valley company Intel, and it considered a government takeover of Spirit Airlines earlier this year, although the airline couldn't reach a deal and ultimately closed. Public backlash is becoming harder to ignore The positioning of leading figures such as Trump and Sanders comes as concerns about AI are emerging far beyond Washington. In Michigan, Democrats recently clashed over Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's appearance with Altman at the site of a major data center. Candidates such as New York Democratic House hopeful Alex Bores have also made AI regulation a campaign issue by tapping into voters' angst about the technology. "This is a real change to society," Altman told reporters this week. "I think it's possible both that people can use AI a lot and like using it and also have anxiety about what it's going to do for the future." Data center projects across the country have drawn opposition from residents concerned about electricity demand, water consumption and environmental impacts. Some states once eager to attract the facilities, including Ohio and Virginia, have moved to reconsider tax incentives. "We need to pass legislation right now that says there's not going to be any further data center development until they agree to pay for their own electricity, build their own grids and pay for their own water supply," Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, a leading Republican skeptic of Big Tech, told The Associated Press. Before arriving in Washington, Altman stopped in Michigan on Monday to appear alongside Whitmer, a Democrat, at the building site of a 1.65 million-square-foot data center. Whitmer's team claimed the project will create more than 2,500 union construction jobs. But it also drew criticism from local activists and some Democrats, including Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who called the project "disgusting." She said she was "so disappointed" in Whitmer. "It's a very controversial topic right now and it's coming from the ground up," Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat, said about the grassroots pushback. "People feel very strongly about it." Whitmer, however, told reporters after the event that "one thing's very clear, everyone has a cellphone in our pocket." "We are all, more and more, consuming technology and data and these data centers are going to get built. So, my thought is if we can hold them to a high standard and do it in Michigan, that's the best way to do it," she said. The tensions extend beyond data centers. On college campuses, commencement speakers have been interrupted by boos when discussing artificial intelligence. About 70% of college students see AI as a threat to their job prospects, according to a 2025 poll by the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School. Altman acknowledged those concerns. He said that while "the impact on jobs has been less than many people in our field expected," he understands "that college students have a lot of anxiety about the future." Washington searches for an AI bargain The idea that AI's expansion is inevitable is increasingly shared by leaders across the political spectrum, even as they disagree sharply about how to manage it. That reality was at the center of Altman's conversations in Washington. In addition to Sanders, Altman met with Trump administration officials such as Michael Kratsios, the White House's chief science and technology adviser, and congressional leaders from both parties. Sanders' team emphasized that the two did not reach an agreement on the main points that the senator made to Altman, including the 50% figure so the public has decision-making power. Sanders also expressed opposition to the growing election spending by the AI industry. "Unfortunately, Sam Altman did not commit to any of those," said Sanders' spokesperson Jeremy Slevin. Altman, in emerging from the conversation, described it as "great," adding that the two "obviously don't agree on everything." Policy makers are also looking at how AI should be governed Congress this week released a bipartisan framework that would establish the first broad federal approach to AI regulation while temporarily preempting many state laws. Anthropic, one of OpenAI's top competitors, has proposed mechanisms for coordinating pauses on advanced AI development if systems become too powerful. The Trump administration has also begun constructing its own oversight structure, signing an executive order to establish a process for reviewing national security risks posed by advanced AI systems before their public release. Sanders said he found the administration's move notable after years of warnings that regulation could slow American innovation. "Even these guys are beginning to catch on that there are legitimate concerns that have to be dealt with," Sanders said.

Bernie Sanders Continues to Be Only Democrat(ish) Lawmaker Willing to Govern on AI

Bernie Sanders might be 84 years old, but he sure acts more in touch with the general public's views on AI than most other lawmakers, including those in the party he caucuses with. In an op-ed published by the New York Times on Monday, the Independent Senator from Vermont called for the government to take a 50% ownership stake in the frontier AI labs, including OpenAI and Anthropic. Sanders' plan will manifest in the form of the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, a piece of legislation the Senator said he will soon introduce. That bill will call for a one-time, 50% tax on frontier AI companies (he names OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI, though there is no mention of existing Big Tech players like Google and Meta) that would be paid in stock. Under Sanders' plan, the federal government would have a controlling share in these labs, both through voting shares and mandatory representation on each company's board, to block any decision that would be deemed harmful to the public. It would also seed a sovereign wealth fund and allow the government to take a share of the massive projected profits that the AI industry is expected to generate (you know, assuming the whole thing isn't a big bubble). On one hand, it'd be better if Bernie didn't pull his punches on this and just called for straight-up nationalization of the frontier labs. It's already clear the technology is a potential danger for all sorts of reasons, and the idea that it should be held by a handful of guys who are heavily invested in making themselves rich means public interest will never be their first consideration. It's also a good time to try to pull that card: Trump's decision to take a significant government stake in Intel, along with his attempts to wield the power of the federal government to make AI companies bend to his will makes it hard to mount a meaningful political defense against the idea. On the other hand, Sanders' proposal does a nice job of calling the bluff of the AI industry. As the Senator pointed out in his op-ed, OpenAI has called for the creation of a "public wealth fund that provides every citizen -- including those not invested in financial markets -- with a stake in AI-driven economic growth," and Anthropic has backed the idea of "national sovereign wealth funds with stakes in AI." Elon Musk has claimed to support "Universal high income via checks issued by the federal government," calling it "the best way to deal with unemployment caused by AI." Surely the response to this bill will be total support, right? (Gizmodo has reached out to OpenAI and Anthropic and will update this story if we hear back.) It's unlikely the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act goes anywhere, because basically no legislation goes anywhere these days, but it's another indicator that Sanders is actually taking this moment seriously. He's one of the few Democratic-aligned politicians actively trying to regulate AI at a federal level and considering the possible consequences of this technology being operated by ungovernable billionaires. Sanders also proposed a pause on data center buildouts, which common wisdom suggested was unlikely to gain much traction, but the public clearly is aligned with Bernie on that issue. He might not have the best grasp on the technology itself, but Bernie continues to be pretty good at reading the tea leaves for how the public feels about AI.

Bernie Sanders proposes giving Americans a 50% stake in AI giants

Bernie Sanders is asking a question that will likely define the next decade of AI policy. Senator Bernie Sanders has announced plans to introduce legislation that would give the American public a direct ownership stake in the country's largest artificial intelligence companies, arguing that the economic gains generated by AI should benefit society as a whole rather than a small group of technology executives and investors. The proposal, called the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, would create a national sovereign wealth fund through a one-time 50% tax on the stock of major AI companies. Instead of taxing profits, the measure would require companies to contribute equity, effectively transferring a substantial ownership stake into a publicly controlled investment fund. In a video announcing the proposal, Sanders described artificial intelligence as "the most transformational technology in the history of the world" and argued that the technology is built upon humanity's collective knowledge, creativity, and labor. "The foundation of AI is our collective human intelligence," Sanders said. "Our books, songs, artwork, journalism, computer code, scientific research, videos, conversations, images, and ideas spanning generations." According to Sanders, the legislation would target companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, and other major AI developers. The shares collected through the proposed tax would be placed into a sovereign wealth fund owned on behalf of the American public. The senator argues that the fund would serve two purposes. First, it would give the public a role in influencing the future direction of AI through government-held voting shares and board representation. Second, it would allow Americans to benefit financially if the value of leading AI companies continues to grow in the coming decades. Sanders suggested that future proceeds from the fund could help support direct payments to citizens as well as investments in healthcare, education, and housing. The proposal draws inspiration from sovereign wealth funds already operating around the world. Sanders specifically pointed to Norway's government pension fund, built on oil revenues and now one of the world's largest investment funds, and Alaska's Permanent Fund, which distributes annual payments to state residents. The announcement comes at a time when the world is actively deliberating on how the economic benefits of artificial intelligence should be distributed. Supporters of stronger AI wealth-sharing mechanisms argue that automation could dramatically increase productivity while simultaneously displacing workers across multiple industries. Critics of current AI development models contend that a handful of companies and investors could capture most of the economic gains generated by the technology. Sanders has repeatedly raised concerns that AI and robotics could eliminate jobs while concentrating wealth and power in the hands of a small number of technology firms. Earlier this year, he warned that artificial intelligence could become "the most transformative economic revolution in the history of this country" and called for policies that ensure workers benefit from the technology rather than being displaced by it. Notably, Sanders argued that the idea of public participation in AI-generated wealth is not entirely new. OpenAI has previously discussed concepts involving public wealth funds that would give citizens a stake in AI-driven economic growth, while Anthropic has suggested national sovereign wealth funds as one possible response to the economic disruptions AI could create. Elon Musk has also publicly discussed direct government payments as a potential response to AI-related unemployment. While the proposal is likely to generate significant discussion within technology and policy circles, its prospects in Congress remain uncertain. A one-time 50% equity transfer would be among the most aggressive government interventions ever proposed for the U.S. technology sector and would almost certainly face strong opposition from AI companies, investors, and many lawmakers. Still, the announcement shows a growing policy debate that extends beyond AI safety and regulation. It is about who should own the enormous wealth that advanced artificial intelligence may create.

'The time has come to reclaim what was stolen from us': Bernie Sanders wants the American public to own 50% stake in AI companies

* Bernie Sanders introduces American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act proposal * OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI and others could have to pay a one-time 50% tax (in shares) * Trump is also exploring ways to distribute wealth generated in the AI boom US Senator Bernie Sanders has unveiled plans to introduce an American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act in a bid to enable US citizens to benefit from the success of AI companies. Under the scheme, the public could be granted a direct ownership stake in America's biggest AI firms, as the proposal would impose a one-time tax, paid in company stock and not cash, on major AI firms like OpenAI, Anthropic and xAI. Because Sanders argues that AI has been built on society's collective knowledge, culture and research, he believes the economic gains should be shared broadly rather than concentrated among just a few leaders. Sanders says the public should benefit from AI successes "Since AI is built on the collective knowledge of humanity, the wealth it generated must benefit humanity," he added. "Not just Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, and other billionaires." Sanders' Act proposes that affected companies pay a one-time 50% tax into the pot, which would directly benefit US citizens. But beyond the financial benefits, it would also provide the public with voting rights and influence over company decisions, effectively making the American people co-owners of AI companies. "This would guarantee that the trillions created by AI are used to improve the lives of all of us -- and block oligarch decisions that harm the American people," he said in an X post unveiling plans for the proposed Act. The proposal is a timely one, with public, government and organizational discussions all taking place around how the wealth generated from the AI boom should be distributed. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has already engaged in discussions with the Trump administration, and Trump just recently spoke out about investing in AI giants on a government level - though not to the same 50% level that Sanders is proposing. For now, this is nothing more than a proposal that would likely attract considerable criticism over its impact on innovation. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.

Bernie Sanders' AI sovereign wealth fund plan is good. But we think this is better | Nathan E Sanders and Bruce Schneier

While we do not outright oppose the taking of AI company stock, or of a US a sovereign wealth fund, there are better ways to achieve the senator's goals Let no one accuse Bernie Sanders of ducking the big questions. Writing in the New York Times last week, the senator asked: "Will the future of humanity be determined by a handful of billionaires who have promoted and developed AI, with virtually no democratic input, who stand to become even richer and more powerful than they are today?" We agree entirely that this is one of the most potent questions facing global democracy today. Our book, Rewiring Democracy, surveys the emerging uses for and impacts of AI in democracy around the world and reaches the same conclusion: that the most urgent risk posed by AI is the concentration of power, wealth and control among tech oligarchs. And yet we reached a vastly different conclusion than Sanders on what to do about it. The senator points to a once radical but increasingly popular solution: creating a US sovereign wealth fund by taking 50% stock in AI companies such as Anthropic, OpenAI and xAI. The argument in favor of this is twofold. One: it would establish democratic control over the AI companies, giving the government "the power, through its voting shares and an equal representation on each company's board, to block decisions that hurt our citizens and to push for policies that help them". Two: it would return a big chunk of the economic rewards of skyrocketing AI valuations to the public, ensuring "trillions of dollars potentially generated by AI are used to improve the lives of all of us". We laud both these goals unreservedly. We wholeheartedly agree that there must be public influence over the development and use of AI, just as we demand the government intervene to ensure that automakers, drugmakers, airlines and other industries balance profitability with public safety and the public interest. And we credit the senator with recognizing that there are more levers for the government to pull beyond the promulgation of regulation to achieve this. And we also agree that the obscene, dangerous accumulation of wealth among AI companies needs to be disrupted. As OpenAI and Anthropic race to be minted as the world's latest trillion dollar AI companies, we should recognize that - whether or not it constitutes a bubble - these staggering market capitalizations represent a transfer of wealth. The flow of money goes from the smaller businesses and actual people using AI, and being subjected to it, to the owners of these tech companies. That includes the world's 86 AI billionaires "seeking to maximize their power and profit" aiming to decide the "fate of humanity ... behind closed doors in Silicon Valley", as Sanders said. And yet, while we do not outright oppose the taking of AI company stock, or of a US a sovereign wealth fund, there are better ways to achieve Sanders' stated goals. Public ownership of these companies entangles corporate profit and valuation with the public interest. It would incentivize the government to clear regulations, permit the exploitation of workers and users, suppress competition, encourage AI adoption regardless of the responsibleness of the implementation or appropriateness of the use case, and otherwise act on behalf of corporate interests. After all, if growing, say, Nvidia from its first $5tn in value to its next $5tn also represents a doubling in value of this segment of the sovereign wealth fund, then you can expect the fund managers to support chip sales, foreign and domestic, with the same zeal as the company's private investors. This is not an effective way to influence corporations to act in the public interest. In fact, it makes corporate influence on the government more likely. We should be wary of this possibility because we've seen it before. Ownership of substantial stakes in oil companies by the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund, the world's largest, does not seem to have steered those corporations to pro-environmental policies. Instead, the Norwegian government's dependence on those companies has inhibited them from taking climate action. Here in the US, public employee pension funds merit the same criticism: the fiduciary duty to generate wealth overwhelms any intention to direct their corporate holdings in the public interest. A better answer is to separate the two goals. The standard way to share private rewards with the broader society that made them possible is taxation. Senator Elizabeth Warren has proposed an excise tax on data centers' energy use. Others have proposed an AI token tax, which has much the same effect. As to the goal of reshaping AI in the public interest, we have proposed an AI Public Option. The concept is for governments, be it federal or state, to establish publicly-developed and operated AI models run by public institutions under democratic control. The idea is not to eliminate corporate AI or to seize it as a public asset, but rather for government to provide a competitive baseline that private AI offerings must meet or exceed to win business - just like the notion of a healthcare public option. The Swiss have trailblazed this approach. Apertus is a large language model built by Swiss public servants, researchers at Swiss universities, using appropriately licensed training data and pre-existing Swiss public supercomputing infrastructure powered by renewable energy. While Apertus doesn't seriously compete with the latest OpenAI and Anthropic models on performance benchmarks, it blows them out of the water in transparency, sustainability and compliance with EU regulations including adherence to copyright. It's a nascent project, but suggestive of how public institutions can apply competitive pressure for corporate actors to behave responsibly. Don't confuse public AI with "sovereign AI", the notion that every country needs to invest in domestic AI infrastructure. Sovereign AI is often invoked as a marketing scheme for big tech companies looking to sell to governments; it demands public investment without guaranteeing public control. Sanders is a bold and savvy political operator. So why is he pursuing the sovereign wealth fund strategy when he must be aware of these risks? It may be due to another argument he makes in his op-ed: that the Trump administration and the billionaire owners of AI are aligned to the idea. It's expedient to capitalize on rare moments of seeming alignment across diverse political factions, but it also behooves us to ask why the AI billionaires are open to this extraordinary intervention. The answer, of course, is that they believe that for every dollar ceded to government stock expropriation, they will get back more in favorable government policies to protect that newfound investment. Energy taxation is a straightforward way to make AI companies pay for the social disruption of their technologies. Public AI represents a non-monetary mechanism for governments to shape the development of AI, complementary to direct regulation of private actors, one with a far greater chance of influencing corporate behavior towards the public interest. We urge Sanders and other political leaders to consider them.

Bernie Sanders AI bill would give public half of the AI industry

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders announced today that he will introduce legislation to give the American public a direct ownership stake in the country's largest artificial intelligence companies. Writing in the New York Times, Sanders laid out the case for the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act -- a bill that would create a federally managed fund created not with cash, but with stock. Specifically, Sanders proposes a one-time transfer of 50 percent of equity from companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI to the government. The idea: since AI is built on the accumulated knowledge, creativity, conversations, and labor of the American people -- typically without permission or payment -- the American people deserve a cut of the profits. Here's what Sanders is proposing. What the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act would accomplish The fund would acquire half the stock of the largest AI companies in the country through a mandated equity transfer -- Sanders is explicit that this is not a profits tax. The government would then hold voting shares and receive equal board representation at each company, giving it formal power to block decisions deemed harmful to the public. Revenue generated by the fund would flow directly to Americans as cash payments, with Sanders indicating that, as the fund grows, proceeds would eventually support broader public goods, including healthcare, education, and housing. He points to Norway's sovereign wealth fund and Alaska's Permanent Fund Dividend as working models of the concept. Sanders' core argument is that AI models were built on the writing, art, journalism, code, and research produced by millions of people without their consent or compensation. Sanders argues that because the technology is derived from collective human output, the wealth it generates should be shared collectively. As Sanders prepares his legislation, AI industry leaders are prepping for a massive payday when Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX (which recently merged with xAI) go public this year. Sanders notes that versions of this idea have come from the AI industry itself. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has proposed a public wealth fund tied to AI-driven economic growth. Anthropic has called for national sovereign wealth funds holding AI equity stakes. Musk has advocated for a "universal high income" to offset AI-related job displacement. Sanders frames these industry positions as validation -- though notably, endorsing a concept in the abstract and accepting a 50 percent equity transfer are very different things. What's still unresolved Sanders acknowledges the legislation is still being written. Several significant questions still lack answers. Profitability is one. OpenAI is notoriously not profitable and has operated at a loss for most of its existence. A sovereign wealth fund built on equity in companies that aren't profitable doesn't generate dividends, and Sanders hasn't addressed what the fund looks like if the AI sector's financial trajectory doesn't match analyst projections. Scope is another. Sanders says applying government ownership to companies where AI is only part of the business is "complicated," without explaining how that would be handled in practice. Microsoft, Google, and Amazon all have major AI operations -- it's unclear whether or how they'd fall under the legislation. Environmental impact gets no mention. AI infrastructure -- data centers, energy consumption, water use -- carries real costs that fall on communities that don't always benefit from generative AI, and the proposal offers no specific mechanism beyond the general promise of government oversight to address them. However, a well-structured sovereign wealth fund could distribute some AI wealth downward, in theory. Government board representation could also create some accountability for a powerful and fast-growing new industry. The populist proposal is far bolder than anything else in the current policy conversation. Until the senator drops the actual legislation, what we have is a premise that's hard to argue with and a plan that's still very much a sketch.

Bernie Sanders and Sam Altman's private one-hour meeting about the public ownership of AI | Fortune

It was perhaps a surprising private overture from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to Sen. Bernie Sanders. The meeting between the two had come just after the Vermont senator announced a plan for the public to take a 50% ownership stake in artificial intelligence companies such as OpenAI, using their stock to create a public wealth fund that would spread the fortune generated by AI behemoths. Altman told Sanders that he, too, wants the public to have equity in AI companies. Though the CEO said he couldn't support Sanders' threshold of 50%, he nonetheless wanted to work with him to advocate for the general idea, according to people with knowledge of the conversation. The nearly hourlong meeting in Sanders' Senate office this week, held at Altman's request, highlighted the inherent tension between AI powerhouses and policymakers as Americans are increasingly asked to accept the costs of the AI boom even as they remain unconvinced of its direct benefits. Yet it's also creating odd political bedfellows fueled by populism as politicians from Sanders to President Donald Trump embrace giving the public a stake in AI's growth. Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Friday, Trump described a potential partnership "where the American people can benefit from the success of AI" and said executives from leading AI companies will visit the White House, "probably next week," to discuss the idea. "There's something very interesting about it, where it almost becomes a partnership with the American public," Trump, a Republican, said Friday. When reporters noted to Trump that Sanders, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist, had proposed public ownership in AI companies, he pointed to similarities in their coalitions. The economic views of Trump voters and voters who supported Sanders for president, Trump said, "aren't that far apart." Trump has embraced government investment in private companies in his second term, scrambling his party's politics. His administration last year secured a 10% stake in the struggling Silicon Valley company Intel, and it considered a government takeover of Spirit Airlines earlier this year, although the airline couldn't reach a deal and ultimately closed. Public backlash is becoming harder to ignore The positioning of leading figures such as Trump and Sanders comes as concerns about AI are emerging far beyond Washington. In Michigan, Democrats recently clashed over Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's appearance with Altman at the site of a major data center. Candidates such as New York Democratic House hopeful Alex Bores have also made AI regulation a campaign issue by tapping into voters' angst about the technology. "This is a real change to society," Altman told reporters this week. "I think it's possible both that people can use AI a lot and like using it and also have anxiety about what it's going to do for the future." Data center projects across the country have drawn opposition from residents concerned about electricity demand, water consumption and environmental impacts. Some states once eager to attract the facilities, including Ohio and Virginia, have moved to reconsider tax incentives. "We need to pass legislation right now that says there's not going to be any further data center development until they agree to pay for their own electricity, build their own grids and pay for their own water supply," Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, a leading Republican skeptic of Big Tech, told The Associated Press. Before arriving in Washington, Altman stopped in Michigan on Monday to appear alongside Whitmer, a Democrat, at the building site of a 1.65 million-square-foot data center. Whitmer's team claimed the project will create more than 2,500 union construction jobs. But it also drew criticism from local activists and some Democrats, including Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who called the project "disgusting." She said she was "so disappointed" in Whitmer. "It's a very controversial topic right now and it's coming from the ground up," Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat, said about the grassroots pushback. "People feel very strongly about it." Whitmer, however, told reporters after the event that "one thing's very clear, everyone has a cellphone in our pocket." "We are all, more and more, consuming technology and data and these data centers are going to get built. So, my thought is if we can hold them to a high standard and do it in Michigan, that's the best way to do it," she said. The tensions extend beyond data centers. On college campuses, commencement speakers have been interrupted by boos when discussing artificial intelligence. About 70% of college students see AI as a threat to their job prospects, according to a 2025 poll by the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School. Altman acknowledged those concerns. He said that while "the impact on jobs has been less than many people in our field expected," he understands "that college students have a lot of anxiety about the future." Washington searches for an AI bargain The idea that AI's expansion is inevitable is increasingly shared by leaders across the political spectrum, even as they disagree sharply about how to manage it. That reality was at the center of Altman's conversations in Washington. In addition to Sanders, Altman met with Trump administration officials such as Michael Kratsios, the White House's chief science and technology adviser, and congressional leaders from both parties. Sanders' team emphasized that the two did not reach an agreement on the main points that the senator made to Altman, including the 50% figure so the public has decision-making power. Sanders also expressed opposition to the growing election spending by the AI industry. "Unfortunately, Sam Altman did not commit to any of those," said Sanders' spokesperson Jeremy Slevin. Altman, in emerging from the conversation, described it as "great," adding that the two "obviously don't agree on everything." Policy makers are also looking at how AI should be governed Congress this week released a bipartisan framework that would establish the first broad federal approach to AI regulation while temporarily preempting many state laws. Anthropic, one of OpenAI's top competitors, has proposed mechanisms for coordinating pauses on advanced AI development if systems become too powerful. The Trump administration has also begun constructing its own oversight structure, signing an executive order to establish a process for reviewing national security risks posed by advanced AI systems before their public release. Sanders said he found the administration's move notable after years of warnings that regulation could slow American innovation. "Even these guys are beginning to catch on that there are legitimate concerns that have to be dealt with," Sanders said.

Bernie Sanders Announces Plan to Seize Half of AI Industry for the Public Good

Can't-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech The hype surrounding generative AI has generated astronomical amounts of value, with tech companies raising tens of billions of dollars and many -- including OpenAI and Anthropic -- preparing to go public this year at sky-high valuations, in moves that will produce incredible wealth for their stockholders. Whether the average Joe will ever directly benefit from all of this is looking dubious at best. That's despite many of these tools relying on AI models that were trained on the creative output of millions of people, copyright be damned, the vast majority of whom have yet to see a single cent. Quite the contrary -- many workers are facing a disastrous job market as a result of corporations stretching themselves thin through massive investments in AI. Meanwhile, concerns continue to grow that the billionaire class is unethically enriching itself through the scheme, while shutting out the democratic process. To independent senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT), that kind of injustice needs to end. In an essay published by the New York Times, Sanders argued for the creation of an "AI Sovereign Wealth Fund" that would be created through a "one-time 50 percent tax" on the stock of AI companies, including OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI, to "give the public a direct ownership stake." In other words, Sanders is proposing to transfer half of the AI companies' stock into a public fund -- a one-time transfer as opposed to a tax on profits -- which the government will manage. Generated revenues could be distributed as "direct payments to the American people." While many important details have yet to be ironed out, as Sanders admits, it would represent a massive shift and equity transfer -- if his act were to pass, that is. "The question, then, is not whether AI will change the world," he wrote. "It will. The question is: Who will own and control that future? Who will benefit from it, and who will be hurt by it?" Sanders argues such a fund would "give the public a direct role in determining the future of this technology," while also guaranteeing that the "trillions of dollars potentially generated by AI are used to improve the lives of all of us -- not simply to make the richest people in the world even richer." While chances of the senator's idea surviving the Congressional approval process are likely slim -- the AI industry holds immense influence over Congress -- it's a creative approach to an increasingly sticky problem. Even tech leaders, who have watched as the backlash to AI continues to grow, have turned their attention to possible solutions to address even greater wealth disparity caused by the emergence of AI. Jeff Bezos recently argued that the bottom 50 percent of earners shouldn't pay any taxes, while OpenAI CEO Sam Altman came up with a new concept called "universal basic compute," which would provide free access to those who can't afford costly AI tools. Meanwhile, SpaceX founder Elon Musk has called for a new take on universal basic income, uninspiringly dubbed "universal high income." Sanders' sovereign wealth fund takes the idea a step further, giving Americans who don't happen to be tech billionaires an opportunity to get in on the ground floor. The concept has already been "put into practice right here at home," Sanders wrote, pointing to an Alaskan sovereign wealth fund that's allowed residents to receive annual dividends through oil revenues. "To start, the billions, if not trillions, of dollars generated by this fund would provide direct payments to the American people," he wrote. "And as the fund generates more and more wealth, the proceeds would be used to ensure that every man, woman and child in our country has a decent and dignified standard of living, including health care, education and housing." More on Bernie Sanders: Unions Attack AI for Menacing Human Jobs

Public ownership of AI? US officials eye stake in tech revolution

From Washington to Brussels, the fight over who controls artificial intelligence is reaching a turning point, and history suggests the public has always had to wrestle essential technology from completely private control. What do AI mogul Sam Altman, Democratic Party firebrand Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump all have in common? All three want the public to have a stake in the AI boom. What they cannot agree on is how much. The OpenAI chief executive met the Vermont senator in his Senate office last week at Altman's own request to discuss Sanders' proposal that the public take a 50% ownership stake in AI companies such as OpenAI, with the proceeds used to create a public wealth fund. Altman told Sanders he supported the general principle but could not back the 50% threshold, according to people with knowledge of the conversation, reported by AP. The debate is no longer confined to Washington. Just days ago, the European Commission unveiled a proposal that could constitute its most sweeping attempt yet to wrestle back control of the technologies shaping the continent's future. The package would bar Amazon, Microsoft and Google from the most sensitive EU government contracts and triple European data centre capacity within seven years. "We cannot afford to depend on others for the technologies that keep our hospitals running, our energy grids stable and our services secure," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. The UK, meanwhile, launched a £500m (€588m) Sovereign AI Fund in April designed to invest directly in British AI companies and reduce reliance on foreign technology providers. Trump and Sanders agree? Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday, Trump described a potential partnership "where the American people can benefit from the success of AI" and said executives from leading AI companies would visit the White House this week to discuss the idea. "There's something very interesting about it, where it almost becomes a partnership with the American public," he said. "It's like you make them partners in this revolution. It would be a beautiful thing." When reporters noted that Sanders, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist often portrayed as radical leftist in US media reporting, had also proposed public ownership in AI companies, Trump pointed to the similarities between their voter bases. "As far as economics is concerned," he said, "we have certain things that aren't that far apart." It is a striking claim given that Sanders is among the president's most vociferous critics. Trump's statements and actions set him apart from most traditional Republicans when it comes to government investment in private companies. His administration took a 10% stake in chipmaker Intel last year, with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick confirming an $8.9bn (€8.2bn) investment in Intel common stock. The administration also considered a government bailout for Spirit Airlines that would have given the US government a 90% stake in the carrier, but a deal was never reached and the airline ultimately shut down. History's lesson It is not the first time a transformative technology has prompted this kind of standoff between those who built it and those tasked with governing it. When railroads became the first industry subject to federal regulation in 1887, it came after decades of public fury at "robber barons" who charged punishing rates to farmers and small businesses while offering sweetheart deals to large corporations. The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 is now being invoked again as policymakers weigh the reach of Big Tech, having emerged from a similar era of technological disruption. Europe has its own version of that history. When the continent lay in ruins after the Second World War, governments moved quickly to bring critical industries under public control on the grounds that infrastructure too powerful to fail was too important to leave in private hands. In France, the post-Liberation government under Charles de Gaulle nationalised gas, electricity and coal between 1944 and 1946, creating state giants including Électricité de France. In the same sweep, it took control of the four largest commercial banks and dozens of insurance companies. Before nationalisation, French electricity had been carved up between roughly 200 private generation companies, 100 transport firms and 1,150 distribution operators. The system was so fragmented that in Lyon, two companies competed directly, one selling alternating current, the other direct current. The case for consolidation under public control was, at its core, an argument about who should benefit from a technology that had become essential to modern life. The logic being applied to AI today is strikingly similar. No deal yet The nearly hour-long meeting between Altman and Sanders highlighted the growing pressure on Washington to extract some public benefit from the AI industry's rapid expansion, even as Americans remain unconvinced they are seeing any direct gains. Sanders' spokesperson Jeremy Slevin was clear that no agreement had been reached on the key points, including the 50% stake that would give the public decision-making power. "Unfortunately, Sam Altman did not commit to any of those," Slevin said. Altman, emerging from the meeting, described it as "great," adding that the two "obviously don't agree on everything." About 70% of college students see AI as a threat to their future jobs, according to a 2025 poll by the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School. On campuses, commencement speakers have been booed for discussing the technology. Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, a leading Republican critic of Big Tech, called for legislation to halt further data centre development "until they agree to pay for their own electricity, build their own grids and pay for their own water supply." Altman acknowledged the anxiety. While he said "the impact on jobs has been less than many people in our field expected," he added that he understood "that college students have a lot of anxiety about the future." Anthropic, one of OpenAI's main rivals, has proposed mechanisms for coordinating pauses on advanced AI development if systems become too powerful. The Trump administration has also signed an executive order establishing a process for reviewing national security risks posed by advanced AI systems before their public release. Sanders noted the shift with some satisfaction. "Even these guys are beginning to catch on that there are legitimate concerns that have to be dealt with," he said.

What AI nationalization could really look like

Senator Bernie Sanders wants the American public to own half of the country's largest AI companies. The senator said this week that he will soon introduce the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, which would create a public fund through a onetime 50% tax on the stock of major artificial intelligence companies. The public, in his telling, would get voting shares, board representation, and eventually a claim on the trillions of dollars that AI may generate. While that might sound, at first, like another sweeping and unlikely bill from the Vermont Independent, its timing is interesting: A day later, President Donald Trump signed an executive order creating a 30-day federal review process for advanced AI models before public release. The order is narrower than what some AI hawks have called for, and Sanders has already criticized its voluntary structure. But together, the two developments suggest that Washington is beginning to treat AI less like another software business and more like a strategic industry whose ownership, access, safety, and profits may be too important to leave entirely to private companies.

MAGA hates AI, but Trump agrees with Bernie it might be time for partial government ownership | Fortune

The strangest political convergence of 2026 just got stranger. Donald Trump said Friday that the U.S. government may take direct equity stakes in AI giants like OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI -- essentially endorsing the populist logic that Sen. Bernie Sanders articulated just days earlier, and validating the fears that have been building inside his own MAGA base for months. "You make them a partnership in this revolution," Trump told reporters Friday. "It would be a beautiful thing." The MAGA revolt no one saw coming For months, Trump tried to hold two contradictory positions simultaneously: champion of AI deregulation and defender of American workers threatened by AI disruption. That tension is snapping under pressure from an unlikely combination of forces -- his own base, a Vermont socialist and Silicon Valley CEOs who read the writing on the wall before their own allies did. Steve Bannon's War Room has been running episode after episode attacking AI companies for copyright theft, algorithmic job destruction, and the concentration of civilization-altering power in the hands of a handful of unelected technologists. Republican strategists were watching polling showing mounting disquiet about AI among MAGA voters in real time. Republican lawmakers had tried repeatedly to introduce legislation constraining the industry on job losses and child safety grounds -- and been rebuffed by the White House each time. Meanwhile, Anthropic issued a stark public warning this week that its systems are advancing so rapidly they may soon be capable of self-improvement without human oversight, joining forces with archrival OpenAI in asking for more safeguards from Congress. Trump's response has been a June 2 executive order asking -- not requiring -- AI companies to voluntarily submit advanced models to a 30-day government review before public release. Trump had bailed on signing another, reportedly stronger, order weeks earlier. But this all may be a prelude to a giant taxpayer investment in massively unprofitable startup companies that are set to have mega-IPOs later this year. Sanders lit the match -- was Altman building the fire? The political moment Sanders seized this week had actually been in the making for months. As first reported by Notus and confirmed by the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had been privately pitching the idea of a government ownership stake to administration officials well before Sanders went public, and had outlined in April a formal proposal for a U.S. public wealth fund to give citizens a stake in AI-driven economic growth. The FT also reported that Altman has since spoken directly with Sanders about the overlapping frameworks and was in Washington this week meeting with lawmakers and Trump administration officials. Sanders' June 2 announcement of the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act presented a bill that would impose a one-time 50% equity tax on the stock of the largest AI firms -- payable in shares, not cash -- channeling the proceeds into a public fund granting ordinary Americans voting rights, corporate board representation, and financial dividends from AI's gains. "The trillions created by AI should be used to improve the lives of all of us," Sanders wrote in a New York Times op-ed. The proposal drew immediate fury from David Sacks -- Trump's former AI and crypto czar. "Nationalization of AI will accelerate the corporate-government fusion we're already sliding toward," Sacks wrote Friday morning. "America won't win the AI race if we beat China but end up with a CCP-style social credit system in the U.S." Hours later, Trump effectively endorsed the premise anyway. Close watchers of the Trump White House are less surprised, as he has been nationalizing sections of the economy at an unprecedented rate for a Democrat or a Republican. The Cato Institute estimates the Trump administration already holds ownership stakes in roughly 20 private companies -- via equity, warrants, and "golden" shares -- spanning mineral firms like MP Materials, semiconductor companies like Intel, and quantum computing players like IBM and GlobalFoundaries. AI would be the next entry on a list that has been quietly growing since January 2025. A beautiful thing -- for whom? Before taxpayers celebrate becoming AI shareholders, there's a number worth examining: $44 billion. That's how much OpenAI's own internal documents project it will lose between 2023 and 2029, with a $14 billion loss projected for 2026 alone, The Information reported. Meanwhile, Elon Musk's xAI lost $6.4 billion from operations on just $3.2 billion in revenue in 2025 -- spending $2 for every $1 brought in -- and that gap is widening. Anthropic is the lone partial exception: the company is on pace for its first profitable quarter, with annualized revenues approaching $47 billion as of May, a 47-fold increase from early 2025. But even Anthropic's profitability remains fragile, built on a cost structure that has already consumed billions in training expenses. The question neither the White House nor Capitol Hill answered Friday is the obvious one: a stake in companies burning tens of billions of dollars a year is not a sovereign wealth fund -- it's a bailout in a blazer. Sanders' proposal would at least collect equity before the cash burn continues, via the stock tax. Palantir's Alex Karp warned his peers in an appearance on TBPN this week that "the momentum is on the side of people who want to nationalize" these AI frontier labs. "Too many of us are chill, waxing like, 'oh, like nationalization. It can't happen. America would never do that.'" Karp said he started calling "the titans of this world," presumably the big tech CEOs: "I've been telling them for six months we're going to be nationalized." Without saying it explicitly, he bemoaned the practice of AI washing, or laying off workers and blaming AI for it and getting a stock-price bump from investors. The political anxiety has a quantifiable foundation. Tech layoffs in 2026 have already surpassed 142,000, with several companies citing AI investment as the reason. Meanwhile, software developer employment for workers aged 22 to 25 has fallen roughly 20% from its 2024 peak. "We have to be very careful to be more disciplined on the corporate side," Karp said. "Like if you run around saying AI allowed you to fire two-thirds of your workforce and you did it because maybe your competitor's kicking your ass ... you might as well just go sign up for Bernie Sanders' manifesto." "These things are very, very explosive," he added. "The American people sense that there is something dangerous here." For this story, Fortune journalists used generative AI as a research tool. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.

Sanders and Trump Want AI Stakes for Different Reasons

As you've probably heard by now, a majority of Americans are pants-pissingly terrified about artificial intelligence and the havoc it may wreak on society. And while those concerns vary -- some people are worried about losing their jobs, others about what it will do to kids, yet others about the ability to form a thought without help from a robot -- the one thing that's clear is that there is no stopping the technology, no going back to a time when a large number of people weren't asking ChatGPT how to break up with someone or using Claude to remove the leaders of South American countries. (There's also no stopping already extremely wealthy tech executives from becoming unfathomably rich.) Regulation, naturally, would be one way to try to rein in the AI juggernaut. Another? According to Bernie Sanders, the American people should take what's ours, i.e., a 50 percent stake in the companies that will bring "unimaginable changes" to our lives. The independent senator from Vermont met last week in his Washington office with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, a meeting that the tech founder requested after the democratic socialist wrote in a New York Times op-ed that he will be introducing the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, legislation that would give the public a 50 percent interest in the country's largest AI companies, as AI has been built on "a public resource ... the accumulated knowledge, creativity and labor of mankind." If passed, the bill would also give the federal government board seats, allowing it to block initiatives that could hurt citizens. The stake in these firms would be used to establish a government-controlled investment fund that would make direct payments to the people and ultimately fund things like health care, education, and housing. The Associated Press reported that Altman told Sanders he also wants the public to own shares of these companies; after he left the meeting, Altman told reporters the sit-down was "great," adding that the two men "obviously don't agree on everything." A spokesperson for Sanders emphasized that the OpenAI co-founder "did not commit" to the senator's top asks, including the 50 percent stake so the public can veto policies not in its best interest. Meanwhile, there's another prominent politician who is apparently interested in the concept of "a partnership with the American public" and the biggest AI firms: President Donald Trump. Speaking to reporters on Air Force One, the president said execs from tech companies will "probably" visit the White House this week to discuss the idea. When it was pointed out to him that Sanders has proposed giving the government a stake in AI companies, he declared that "as economics is concerned, we have certain things that are not that far apart." Of course, Trump's enthusiasm for giving the government equity in these companies seemingly shares little in common with Sanders's vision, which is about, among other things, protecting workers and using the money to ensure people can afford their blood-pressure medication. Trump, on the other hand, seems most excited about the idea of picking a winning stock, telling reporters on Friday that he "should be a stockbroker." Also likely at play here is that among the crumpled Diet Coke cans and malfunctioning mechanical claws knocking around in his brain and making horrible metal-on-metal sounds, the notion that AI is deeply unpopular has broken through. And the president -- who was previously content to basically let AI rip -- would like to capitalize on that. Last week, Sriram Krishnan, who had played a key role in advising the White House on AI regulation -- that is, he was reportedly in favor of less regulation and more data centers -- announced he will be leaving his post at the end of the month. His departure followed that of "AI Czar" David Sacks, who had reportedly convinced Trump to delay signing an executive order letting the government review new AI technologies before they are rolled out to the public. The president ultimately signed an order several weeks later that would give the government access to the new models 30 rather than 90 days before they are released. Sanders says he will introduce the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act in the coming weeks. On Friday, rocket/satellite/AI company SpaceX will go public, at which point millions of Americans will automatically own a piece of Elon Musk's firm, though obviously not in a way that will give them any kind of say whatsoever.

Sanders: Give public 50 percent stake in AI companies

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Monday said that he will soon introduce a bill proposing to give the public a 50 percent stake in large artificial intelligence (AI) companies. In a nearly seven-minute video message, the progressive senator said that he will introduce the AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act "in the coming weeks." He said that the legislation would give the public "a direct ownership stake" in the country's largest AI companies via a one-time, 50 percent tax on their stocks. "It would do two extremely critical things," Sanders said of his legislation. "First, it would give the American people a direct role in determining the future of this technology. No longer would the future of AI be dictated by a handful of Big Tech oligarchs, while the rest of the world sits back and watches them do what they want. "Secondly, it would guarantee that the trillions of dollars potentially generated by AI are used to improve the lives of all of us -- not simply to make the richest people on Earth even richer." Three of the world's leading AI companies, Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceX, are attempting to go public later this year. Anthropic said Monday that it has filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission to go public. Sanders has emerged as a critic of the sweeping power that large AI companies have over society. In March, he and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) introduced legislation that would bar construction of all new data centers until the federal government implements "safeguards" to protect the public from the "dangers" posed by AI. That proposal, the Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act, proposed halting the construction of data centers until lawmakers pass measures requiring government reviews of AI products, preventing job displacement and ensuring that data centers do not increase utility or electricity bills of consumers. On Monday, Sanders continued his populist messaging on the subject, arguing that since AI companies used human intelligence to create their models, society as a whole must share in the profits generated from the technology. "The time has come to reclaim what was stolen from us. Since AI is built on the collective knowledge of humanity, the wealth it generates must benefit humanity, not just Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison and other billionaires, or the venture capitalists and Wall Street firms who see AI as the next great wealth-extracting machine." In March, President Trump reached an agreement with major tech firms to have them cover the cost of the electricity they consume via AI infrastructure. A 2024 report from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that data centers consumed roughly 4.4 percent of total U.S. electricity the year prior and projected that they will consume between 6.7 percent and 12 percent by 2028. The president on Tuesday also signed an executive order stating that AI labs can voluntarily provide the government with their models for up to 30 days of testing before they release them publicly. Later Tuesday afternoon, Sanders criticized the "voluntary" nature of the testing provision and said the executive order "does almost nothing to protect Americans."

'AI won't just moderate posts, it will curate reality': Former White House AI czar David Sacks warns against govt control of AI

David Sacks, chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and former White House AI and Crypto Czar, has criticized US Senator Bernie Sanders' proposal to give the public a 50 per cent ownership stake in major American AI companies, warning that government control of artificial intelligence could lead to a "CCP-style social credit system" in the United States. David Sacks, Chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and former White House AI and Crypto Czar, has criticized US Senator Bernie Sanders' proposal to give the public a 50 per cent ownership stake in major American AI companies, warning that government control of artificial intelligence could lead to a "CCP-style social credit system" in the United States. Responding to Sanders' June 2 post on X, Sacks said he understood why the proposal was resonating with some Americans but argued that nationalising AI companies would create greater risks. "While I'm no fan of socialism or arbitrary confiscations of wealth, I can see why Bernie Sanders' proposal (for the government to take a 50% stake in AI companies) resonates," Sacks wrote. He said AI companies themselves had fueled public concerns by repeatedly warning about large-scale job losses. "The CEOs of the leading AI labs have told us repeatedly that they will cause massive job loss. This is not a story that I believe, nor does the data bear it out, but this is what they have told us," he said. Sacks argued that the bigger concern was government involvement in AI development. "Nationalization of AI will accelerate the corporate-government fusion we're already sliding toward," he wrote. Drawing a comparison with concerns around central bank digital currencies, Sacks added, "Conservatives rightly fear a Central Bank Digital Currency. They ought to be even more concerned about Central Government AI." He warned that AI controlled by the government could become a powerful tool for censorship and surveillance, saying, "AI won't just moderate posts; it will curate reality." The comments are in response to Sanders announcing that he would introduce the 'American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act.' In a video shared on X, Sanders said, "I will soon be introducing a bill to give the public a 50% ownership stake in the largest AI companies in America." Sanders has argued that AI systems were built using humanity's collective knowledge and that the benefits should be shared broadly. "The foundation of AI is our collective human intelligence," he said, adding that AI had been trained on humanity's "books, songs, artwork, journalism, computer code, scientific research, videos, conversations, images, and ideas spanning generations." He said the proposed legislation would create a public stake in major AI firms through "a one-time 50% tax, not on profits, but on stock." According to Sanders, the wealth generated by AI should benefit society rather than a small group of technology billionaires. "The future of AI must not be decided behind closed doors in Silicon Valley. It must not be dictated by billionaires seeking to maximize their power and profits," he said. Sanders said revenues generated through the proposed sovereign wealth fund could be used for direct payments to Americans and to support healthcare, education and housing initiatives.

Bernie Sanders Wants Americans To Own 50% Of OpenAI, xAI And Anthropic In Sweeping New Bill -- Here's What

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) has proposed a bill aimed at granting the American public ownership in the nation's leading artificial intelligence (AI) companies. Sanders, on Monday, has put forth the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act proposal. This proposed legislation would establish a federal fund, not filled with cash, but with stock, procured through a one-time equity transfer of 50% from AI companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI to the government. The fund would hold voting shares and have equal board representation in each company, thereby having the power to veto decisions considered detrimental to the public. He contends that AI, trained on the collective knowledge and labor of Americans, often without consent or compensation, should share its financial rewards with the public instead of concentrating wealth among AI leaders such as Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, and others. The fund's revenue would be directly distributed to Americans as cash payments. As the fund expands, Sanders proposes that the proceeds could be used to support wider public goods, including healthcare, education, and housing. He points to Norway's sovereign wealth fund and Alaska's Permanent Fund Dividend as successful examples of this idea. OpenAI, xAI and Anthropic did not immediately respond to Benzinga's requests for comments. Lawmakers Push AI Oversight This proposal comes amid growing concerns over the rapid development of AI. In May, Sanders expressed that 70% of Americans believe AI is advancing too quickly, with 77% fearing the elimination of entire industries. Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. Image via Shutterstock Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.

Both Left and Right in Washington Eye Public Equity Stakes in AI Companies | PYMNTS.com

Per CNBC's sources, Trump's interest in the idea originated in a conversation with OpenAI Ceo Sam Altman, who suggested the equity stake could be used to seed something like the Public Wealth Fund outlined in the company's Industrial Policy for the Intelligence Age proposal released in April. Money from the fund could then be distributed directly to public, giving all U.S. citizens a share of the economic gains produced by the technology, much as Alaska has for decades distributed money collected from fees paid by oil companies directly to residents. OpenAI may not be the only AI company discussing public equity stakes with the White House, moreover. Online news site NOTUS reported last week that the administration has held similar conversations with several leading AI companies in addition to OpenAI. While the plans being discussed are fluid, per NOTUS' sources, they center on the companies voluntarily ceding shares to the government that would be used to fund public priorities, potentially including direct dividend payments to citizens. Following the NOTUS report, the president discussed the idea in comments to reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday. "There are concepts where pieces could be given to the American public, where the American public essentially becomes a partner," Trump said, adding he would be meeting with the AI companies "in the very short, very near future." The increased interest in the idea from both ends of the political and ideological spectrum comes as OpenAI, Anthropic and xAI (part of SpaceX) are gearing up for initial public offerings that are expected to yield hundreds of billions of dollars. OpenAI is currently valued by private investors at $850 billion while Anthropic's latest fund-raising round valued the company at more than $900 billion. The SpaceX IPO, meanwhile, is expected to be priced at well over $1 trillion. Under Trump, the U.S. has made direct investments in at least 10 companies, including a deal with Intel that the White House has called a "direct windfall for American taxpayers," as the chipmaker's stock has grown four-fold in the months since. Whether the bipartisan interest in taking public stakes in AI companies will lead to bipartisan action remains to be seen. Apart from distributing funds directly to Americans, Republicans and Democrats are likely to have very different priorities for other uses of the money. In his op-ed calling for mandatory equity transfers, Sanders said the funds should be used to support health care, education, housing, and other public goods. Under Trump, Republicans in Congress have focused on cutting funds for health care, education and food assistance and are more likely to prioritize using funds from the equity stakes to pay for further income tax cuts. It's also unclear from the reports whether any earnings from the stakes would go into the general U.S. treasury, where any disbursements would require explicit congressional debate and appropriation, or whether the money would go into a separate, sui generis fund. If the latter, control of the fund could trigger additional political battles.

Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders and Sam Altman are all talking about public ownership in AI

Trump has embraced government investment in private companies in his second term, scrambling his party's politics. His administration last year secured a 10 per cent stake in the struggling Silicon Valley company Intel, and it considered a government takeover of Spirit Airlines earlier this year, although the airline couldn't reach a deal and ultimately closed. It was perhaps a surprising private overture from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to Sen. Bernie Sanders. The meeting between the two had come just after the Vermont senator announced a plan for the public to take a 50 per cent ownership stake in artificial intelligence companies such as OpenAI, using their stock to create a public wealth fund that would spread the fortune generated by AI behemoths. Altman told Sanders that he, too, wants the public to have equity in AI companies. Though the CEO said he couldn't support Sanders' threshold of 50 per cent, he nonetheless wanted to work with him to advocate for the general idea, according to people with knowledge of the conversation. The nearly hourlong meeting in Sanders' Senate office this week, held at Altman's request, highlighted the inherent tension between AI powerhouses and policymakers as Americans are increasingly asked to accept the costs of the AI boom even as they remain unconvinced of its direct benefits. Yet it's also creating odd political bedfellows fuelled by populism as politicians from Sanders to President Donald Trump embrace giving the public a stake in AI's growth. Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Friday, Trump described a potential partnership "where the American people can benefit from the success of AI" and said executives from leading AI companies will visit the White House, "probably next week," to discuss the idea. "There's something very interesting about it, where it almost becomes a partnership with the American public," Trump, a Republican, said Friday. When reporters noted to Trump that Sanders, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist, had proposed public ownership in AI companies, he pointed to similarities in their coalitions. The economic views of Trump voters and voters who supported Sanders for president, Trump said, "aren't that far apart." Trump has embraced government investment in private companies in his second term, scrambling his party's politics. His administration last year secured a 10 per cent stake in the struggling Silicon Valley company Intel, and it considered a government takeover of Spirit Airlines earlier this year, although the airline couldn't reach a deal and ultimately closed. Public backlash is becoming harder to ignore The positioning of leading figures such as Trump and Sanders comes as concerns about AI are emerging far beyond Washington. In Michigan, Democrats recently clashed over Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's appearance with Altman at the site of a major data center. Candidates such as New York Democratic House hopeful Alex Bores have also made AI regulation a campaign issue by tapping into voters' angst about the technology. "This is a real change to society," Altman told reporters this week. "I think it's possible both that people can use AI a lot and like using it and also have anxiety about what it's going to do for the future." Data center projects across the country have drawn opposition from residents concerned about electricity demand, water consumption and environmental impacts. Some states once eager to attract the facilities, including Ohio and Virginia, have moved to reconsider tax incentives. "We need to pass legislation right now that says there's not going to be any further data center development until they agree to pay for their own electricity, build their own grids and pay for their own water supply," Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, a leading Republican skeptic of Big Tech, told The Associated Press. Before arriving in Washington, Altman stopped in Michigan on Monday to appear alongside Whitmer, a Democrat, at the building site of a 1.65 million-square-foot data center. Whitmer's team claimed the project will create more than 2,500 union construction jobs. But it also drew criticism from local activists and some Democrats, including Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who called the project "disgusting." She said she was "so disappointed" in Whitmer. "It's a very controversial topic right now and it's coming from the ground up," Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat, said about the grassroots pushback. "People feel very strongly about it." Whitmer, however, told reporters after the event that "one thing's very clear, everyone has a cellphone in our pocket." "We are all, more and more, consuming technology and data and these data centers are going to get built. So, my thought is if we can hold them to a high standard and do it in Michigan, that's the best way to do it," she said. The tensions extend beyond data centers. On college campuses, commencement speakers have been interrupted by boos when discussing artificial intelligence. About 70 per cent of college students see AI as a threat to their job prospects, according to a 2025 poll by the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School. Altman acknowledged those concerns. He said that while "the impact on jobs has been less than many people in our field expected," he understands "that college students have a lot of anxiety about the future." Washington searches for an AI bargain The idea that AI's expansion is inevitable is increasingly shared by leaders across the political spectrum, even as they disagree sharply about how to manage it. That reality was at the centre of Altman's conversations in Washington. In addition to Sanders, Altman met with Trump administration officials such as Michael Kratsios, the White House's chief science and technology adviser, and congressional leaders from both parties. Sanders' team emphasized that the two did not reach an agreement on the main points that the senator made to Altman, including the 50 per cent figure so the public has decision-making power. Sanders also expressed opposition to the growing election spending by the AI industry. "Unfortunately, Sam Altman did not commit to any of those," said Sanders' spokesperson Jeremy Slevin. Altman, in emerging from the conversation, described it as "great," adding that the two "obviously don't agree on everything." Policy makers are also looking at how AI should be governed Congress this week released a bipartisan framework that would establish the first broad federal approach to AI regulation while temporarily preempting many state laws. Anthropic, one of OpenAI's top competitors, has proposed mechanisms for coordinating pauses on advanced AI development if systems become too powerful. The Trump administration has also begun constructing its own oversight structure, signing an executive order to establish a process for reviewing national security risks posed by advanced AI systems before their public release. Sanders said he found the administration's move notable after years of warnings that regulation could slow American innovation. "Even these guys are beginning to catch on that there are legitimate concerns that have to be dealt with," Sanders said.

Bernie Sanders Prepping Bill To Give the Public 50% Stakes in AI Companies | PYMNTS.com

Writing in an op-ed in the New York Times, Sanders said revenue produced by the stakes would be used to fund direct cash payments to Americans and eventually to support health care, education, housing and other public goods. "If passed, this legislation would... give the public a direct role in determining the future of this technology," Sanders wrote. "No longer would the future of A.I. and the transformation of human life that it will bring be dictated by a handful of Big Tech oligarchs. The federal government would have the power, through its voting shares and an equal representation on each company's board, to block decisions that hurt our citizens and to push for policies that help them." He stressed that both OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei have proposed creating a sovereign AI fund to give U.S. citizens a direct stake in the AI economy, whether they are invested in the stock market or not. He noted that many other countries have such fund, singling out Norway's $2 trillion sovereign fund financed by the country's oil wealth, which it uses to support a broad range of public benefits. "The future of A.I. and the fate of humanity must not be decided behind closed doors in Silicon Valley," Sanders wrote. "It must not be dictated by billionaires seeking to maximize their power and profit. It must be decided by workers, parents, teachers, artists, scientists, communities and the American people." Sanders, along with fellow progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), have emerged as two of the most prominent Congressional voices calling for greater oversight of AI. In March, the two introduced companion bills in the Senate and House to pause further data center development in the U.S. until safeguards are put in place to protect workers, consumers and the environment. Sanders acknowledged in his op-ed that having the government take such a substantial equity stake in private companies could be problematic. "Needless to say, I recognize that for the government to have a major stake in a company, particularly one for which A.I. is only part of its business, is complicated," he wrote. "More details -- including the specific spending priorities and the mechanics of implementation -- will be included in the legislation I unveil in the coming weeks. But the principle is simple: When a public resource generates wealth, the public should share in that wealth. A.I. is being built on a public resource far more valuable than oil: the accumulated knowledge, creativity and labor of mankind."