The strangest political convergence of 2026 just got stranger. Donald Trump said Friday that the U.S. government may take direct equity stakes in AI giants like OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI — essentially endorsing the populist logic that Sen. Bernie Sanders articulated just days earlier, and validating the fears that have been building inside his own MAGA base for months.
“You make them a partnership in this revolution,” Trump told reporters Friday. “It would be a beautiful thing.”
The MAGA revolt no one saw coming
For months, Trump tried to hold two contradictory positions simultaneously: champion of AI deregulation and defender of American workers threatened by AI disruption. That tension is snapping under pressure from an unlikely combination of forces — his own base, a Vermont socialist and Silicon Valley CEOs who read the writing on the wall before their own allies did.
Steve Bannon’s War Room has been running episode after episode attacking AI companies for copyright theft, algorithmic job destruction, and the concentration of civilization-altering power in the hands of a handful of unelected technologists. Republican strategists were watching polling showing mounting disquiet about AI among MAGA voters in real time. Republican lawmakers had tried repeatedly to introduce legislation constraining the industry on job losses and child safety grounds — and been rebuffed by the White House each time.
