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Bernie Sanders Prepping Bill To Give the Public 50% Stakes in AI Companies

By  |  June 2, 2026
Bernie Sanders

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) will shortly introduce legislation to create a sovereign wealth fund by taking a 50% stake in the largest AI companies. Under the soon-to-be-proposed American A.I. Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, the U.S. would acquire half the stock of OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI and other leading AI companies through a mandated equity transfer. The government would then hold voting shares and receive equal board representation at each company, giving it the power to affect corporate priorities and policies directly.

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    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.”