Senator Bernie Sanders is set to introduce legislation that would force the country’s largest artificial intelligence companies to hand half their equity to a new federal fund, giving ordinary Americans a direct ownership stake in an industry he says was built on their knowledge, creativity, and labor.
The bill, called the American A.I. Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, would hit OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI with a one-time 50% tax on their stock, payable in shares rather than cash. The federal government would take voting seats and equal board representation at each company, gaining the power to block decisions deemed harmful to citizens and to steer the companies toward public benefit.
Sanders, the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, says proceeds from the fund would eventually flow back to Americans as direct payments and as guaranteed access to health care, education, and housing.
The case Sanders makes is blunt. AI models, he argues, were built on publicly created material, books, songs, , journalism, scientific research, and more, without the permission or compensation of the people who made them. He frames that accumulated output as a public resource more valuable than oil, and concludes that the industry’s largest winners owe the public a corresponding share of what they built.
“Artificial intelligence will almost certainly be the most transformational technology in the history of the world,” Sanders said. “The future of A.I. and the fate of humanity must not be decided behind closed doors in Silicon Valley. 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. It’s our future. We must decide it.”
The political footing for the proposal is awkward for his targets.
OpenAI previously proposed a “public wealth fund that provides every citizen, including those not invested in financial markets, with a stake in A.I.-driven economic growth.”
Anthropic called for “national sovereign wealth funds with stakes in A.I.”
Elon Musk has stated that “Universal HIGH INCOME via checks issued by the Federal government is the best way to deal with unemployment caused by AI.”
Sanders names Sam Altman, Musk, and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei as the executives whose companies stand to gain the most.
The model has precedents. Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, seeded from oil revenues and now worth more than $2 trillion, and Alaska’s oil-backed fund, which has paid annual dividends to residents for roughly 50 years, both show that public equity vehicles can deliver lasting returns to ordinary citizens. Public pension funds across U.S. states already hold hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate stock. President Trump has signed an executive order proposing an American sovereign wealth fund of his own.
Sanders acknowledges the bill is complicated, particularly for companies where AI is only part of a broader business. Further details on spending priorities and implementation mechanics are expected in the coming weeks.
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