Senator Bernie Sanders has significantly escalated his AI ownership proposal, now targeting 50% public ownership in major AI companies. The updated legislation would impose a one-time equity tax on OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, and other frontier AI labs and transfer their shares into public ownership. The fund would hold public equity, provide the government with voting shares, and seat representatives on each company's board. Sanders argued that since AI is built on humanity's collective knowledge, the wealth should benefit all of humanity rather than just a few executives.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin criticized the nationalist rhetoric driving frontier AI policy on the same day as Sanders' proposal. As reported by multiple sources, Buterin argued that AI labs, which once promised to serve all of humanity, now justify their concentration of power by pointing to China. He stated that the discourse has shifted from serving all of humanity in the 2010s to benefiting only 4% of humanity in the 2020s. Buterin's earlier writing on Vitalik AI totalitarian risks has previously pushed back against zero-sum framings in the AI industry.
The targeted AI companies, several of which recently entered the trillion-dollar pre-IPO club, have not publicly responded to Sanders' proposal. According to reports, Sanders specifically named Sam Altman and Elon Musk as figures whose ownership would shrink under the proposed legislation. The US-China AI race has dominated industry lobbying, with the global AI regulation debate splitting along familiar lines between progressives backing public ownership and industry voices warning of a dampened investment climate.
Kevin Frazier, a law professor focused on AI policy, warned that Sanders' essay reads as a warning shot to an industry that has avoided public input. As reported by multiple sources, Frazier suggested that absent more meaningful mechanisms for people to share their views on AI and shape its development, the backlash will grow and 'missed uses' will become the default. Sanders indicated that the full bill text will follow soon, citing Norway's oil sovereign wealth fund as a precedent for the proposed American AI fund.
