Bernie Sanders wants to take half the stock of America’s biggest AI companies and give it to the people. That’s the core pitch behind the American A.I. Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, which the Vermont senator laid out in a New York Times op-ed on June 1.
The proposal calls for a one-time 50% stock tax on major AI firms, specifically naming OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI as targets. The proceeds would establish a sovereign wealth fund designed to give American citizens direct ownership stakes in the technologies reshaping their economy.
What the proposal actually does
Rather than taxing corporate profits, which companies are famously creative at minimizing, Sanders is going after equity itself. A one-time 50% stock levy would transfer ownership shares from these AI firms into a publicly held fund.
This is a meaningful departure from how Washington typically thinks about tech regulation. Most proposals involve licensing frameworks, safety audits, or traditional corporate taxation. Sanders is skipping all of that and going straight for the cap table.
