Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., plans to introduce legislation in the coming weeks that would give the American public a direct ownership stake in the country’s largest artificial intelligence (AI) companies.
In a June 1 op-ed in The New York Times, Sanders outlined the forthcoming American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, which would create a sovereign wealth fund with stock.
Sanders explained that the legislation would create the fund through a one-time 50% tax on equity from companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, and others.
“If passed, this legislation would do two crucial things. First, it would give the public a direct role in determining the future of this technology,” Sanders said. “No longer would the future of AI and the transformation of human life that it will bring be dictated by a handful of Big Tech oligarchs.”
The senator said the federal government would have the power “through its voting shares and an equal representation on each company’s board” to block decisions that may hurt U.S. citizens.
“Second, this legislation 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 in the world even richer,” Sanders said. “If the big AI companies continue to grow as rapidly as many analysts expect, then the value of the sovereign wealth fund will grow as well – and the benefits to the American people will grow along with it.”
Sanders said the coming legislation will include more details, including specific spending priorities and implementation mechanisms.
The senator emphasized that the idea of a sovereign wealth fund is not a new idea. Sanders noted that OpenAI recently proposed a similar idea, as did Anthropic. President Donald Trump also proposed the creation of an American sovereign wealth fund in an executive order.
He also pointed to the existing sovereign wealth fund in Alaska, which the state created from its oil revenues.
“The principle is simple: When a public resource generates wealth, the public should share in that wealth,” Sanders said. “AI is being built on a public resource far more valuable than oil: the accumulated knowledge, creativity and labor of mankind.”