Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders announced plans today to introduce the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, a bill that would force the nation’s largest artificial intelligence companies to transfer 50 percent of their equity to the federal government. According to Mashable, the proposal is designed to compensate the public for the use of collective human knowledge—including art, journalism, and code—that has been used to train AI models without consent or payment.
Under the proposed legislation, the government would not impose a traditional tax. Instead, it would secure a direct ownership stake in firms such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI. The state would hold voting shares and gain board representation, granting it the power to intervene in corporate decisions deemed harmful to the public interest.
A model for public dividends
Sanders argues that the wealth generated by AI should be shared with the citizens whose labor built the foundation of the technology. He points to the Alaska Permanent Fund and Norway’s sovereign wealth fund as functional templates for the initiative. Revenue generated by the fund would be distributed to Americans as cash payments, with future proceeds earmarked for education, housing, and healthcare.
While the industry has previously expressed interest in wealth distribution, the scale of Sanders' proposal remains contentious. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic, and Elon Musk have all publicly discussed concepts like public wealth funds, robot taxes, or universal high income to offset AI-driven job displacement. However, Mashable notes that endorsing these concepts in the abstract is significantly different from surrendering half of a company’s equity.
The legislation faces immediate hurdles, particularly regarding the financial viability of the target companies. OpenAI, for example, has operated at a loss for most of its existence. If the fund is tied to equity in entities that lack consistent profitability, it may fail to generate dividends for the public.
Furthermore, the scope of the bill remains undefined. Sanders has acknowledged that applying this mandate to diversified conglomerates like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon—where AI is only one component of a much larger business—presents a complex regulatory challenge. As companies like Anthropic and SpaceX approach initial public offerings, the debate over who owns the products of collective human output is expected to intensify.
