Bernie Sanders and Sam Altman’s private one-hour meeting about the public ownership of AI

It was perhaps a surprising private overture from Open AI CEO Sam Altman to Sen. Bernie Sanders. The meeting between the two had come just after the Vermont senator announced a plan for the public to take a 50% ownership stake in artificial intelligence companies such as Open AI, using their stock to create a public wealth fund that would spread the fortune generated by AI behemoths. Altman told Sanders that he, too, wants the public to have equity in AI companies. Though the CEO said he couldn’t support Sanders’ threshold of 50%, he nonetheless wanted to work with him to advocate for the general idea, according to people with knowledge of the conversation. The nearly hourlong meeting in Sanders’ Senate office this week, held at Altman’s request, highlighted the inherent tension between AI powerhouses and policymakers as Americans are increasingly asked to accept the costs of the AI boom even as they remain unconvinced of its direct benefits. Yet it’s also creating odd political bedfellows fueled by populism as politicians from Sanders to President Donald Trump embrace giving the public a stake in AI’s growth. Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Friday, Trump described a potential partnership “where the American people can benefit from the success of AI” and said executives from leading AI companies will visit the White House, “probably next week,” to discuss the idea. “There’s something very interesting about it, where it almost becomes a partnership with the American public,” Trump, a Republican, said Friday. When reporters noted to Trump that Sanders, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist, had proposed public ownership in AI companies, he pointed to similarities in their coalitions. The economic views of Trump voters and voters who supported Sanders for president, Trump said, “aren’t that far apart.” Trump has embraced government investment in private companies in his second term, scrambling his party’s politics. His administration la