Former White House AI and Crypto Czar David Sacks pushed back against Sen. Bernie Sanders‘ (I-VT) proposal to give the government a 50% ownership stake in the largest AI companies, warning it would create “Central Government AI — a system with even more totalistic power over information, decision-making, and human behavior.”
Sacks Sees the Political Logic — But Calls It a Trap
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In his Friday post on X, Sacks said he could see why the proposal resonates even among conservatives, noting that AI lab CEOs themselves had repeatedly warned of massive job displacement, a narrative he said he does not believe and is not supported by the data. He called out Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman for walking back those claims, saying the damage to public trust is done.
He also hit the labs for enriching NGOs advancing agendas “at odds with traditional values,” calling it “Soros-maxxing” that conservatives don’t consider genuine philanthropy. Sacks said he “could almost support the Sanders proposal as a stupidity tax.”
