Senator Bernie Sanders wants every American to own a piece of OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI. Late on Monday, he posted a video describing his vision: the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, which would impose a one-time 50% tax on each company’s stock, paid in shares, depositing the equity into a public fund that gives ordinary Americans voting rights, board representation, and eventually, a check in the mail.
The federal government would also have the power, through those voting shares and equal board seats, to block decisions deemed harmful and push for policies that benefit the public—something one of Anthropic’s cofounders even argued for during Pope Leo XIV’s presentation of his first papal encyclical.
