Sixty-nine percent. That’s the share of Americans who told research firm Verasight they back forcing AI companies to transfer 50% of their stock into a sovereign wealth fund, according to a June national survey of 1,690 adults. Not a slim majority. Not a partisan sliver. A supermajority — in a country that can barely agree on pizza toppings. The finding lands at a moment when tech companies are posting record AI investments while simultaneously handing out pink slips, a combination that hits like getting a raise notification and a layoff email in the same inbox. One measure of that investment scale: the Stargate Project, a $500 billion AI infrastructure commitment that illustrates just how much private capital is flowing into the sector.
The $7 Trillion Idea
Senator Sanders’ bill would tax AI companies’ stock — not their profits — and cut every American a check.
“The economic benefits generated by AI are used to improve the lives of all of us — not simply to make the richest people in the world even richer.” Senator Bernie Sanders introduced the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act on June 18, 2026, targeting companies generating at least $200 million in annual AI-related revenue. The mechanism: a one-time 50% stock tax. Shares go into a public fund his office estimates at roughly $7 trillion, yielding an annual 5% dividend — about $350 billion — enough for direct payments exceeding $1,000 per American per year.
Goldman Sachs economist Joseph Briggs projects approximately 15 million U.S. workers — 9% of the labor force — face displacement over a decade-long AI transition. Briggs considers those losses largely temporary. Workers staring down automation, however, tend to think in months, not decades — a concern made vivid by machines that have already made your receptionist obsolete.
Public Ownership, Private Pushback
Governance powers and unresolved constitutional questions make this proposal far more than a thought experiment.
Governance would fall to an Independent Commission for Democratic AI — seven presidentially nominated members wielding the public’s 50% voting stake, empowered to block corporate decisions deemed harmful to the public. Verasight CEO Benjamin Leff captured the broader mood: “AI sovereign funds are seen as a tool to distribute the gains from the AI industry back to broader society.” Critics, per Forbes, warn a forced equity transfer could trigger constitutional challenges on expropriation grounds. Windfall Trust researchers flag a separate tension: maximizing financial returns for citizens can conflict with building domestic AI capacity when the highest-yield investments sit in foreign firms rather than homegrown ones.
Norway built a $1.8 trillion sovereign wealth fund on oil. This proposal bets the next extractable resource isn’t underground — it’s running on GPUs. Whether or not the bill passes, the fact that public ownership of AI has become a mainstream demand rather than a fringe position tells you something real about where the anger is headed. For those looking to engage with the technology directly in the meantime, AI-powered websites offer a more immediate way to see what the fuss is about.
