Bernie Sanders wants Americans to own a piece of AI. The Trump White House seems to agree

Senator Bernie Sanders wants every American to own a piece of Open AI, Anthropic, and x AI. 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. While it may seem typical coming from the senator who has long pushed spoke of AI taking jobs from American and pushed for redistribution through a tax on billionaires, he’s not alone in calling for supervision on the AI industry. Typical bedfellows from the left include Sen. Elizabeth Warren and climate activist Erin Brockovich, whose work led to the restitution of millions of dollars to victims of environmental hazards and was famously portrayed by Julia Roberts. Most surprisingly, however, is that even the Trump administration seems to agree. Taking ownership of a private company was once unthinkable for a right-wing government, but the Trump administration has been aggressive in doing so. While this is a contested figure, the Cato Institute estimates that the White House already has ownership stakes in 20 private companies, in the form of equity stakes, warrants, and golden shares. These range from mineral companies like MP Materials, Trilogy Metals and Lithium Americas, to semiconductor firms like Intel and xLight, to quantum powers IBM and GlobalFoundries. So while the independent senator from Vermont is advocating for redistribution of government ownership in private companies, the Trump administration has already completed the firs