Sen. Bernie Sanders is taking aim at the artificial intelligence giants getting rich off a technology built on the public’s data and the public’s labor — and he wants the public to own a piece of it. In legislation first reported by the Associated Press, the Vermont independent has proposed a sweeping new tax on the largest AI companies, with a twist that sets it apart from almost anything Washington has debated: the tax would be paid in stock, not cash.
Under the plan, the biggest AI firms — those reaching at least $200 million in annual AI sales — would be subject to a one-time 50% tax on their stock. Rather than writing a check to the Treasury, those companies would transfer half of their shares into a sovereign wealth fund owned by the American people. The result, Sanders argues, would make every citizen a shareholder in the AI boom, with a direct financial stake in an industry projected to generate staggering wealth over the coming decades.
A Fund That Could Reach Nearly $7 Trillion
Sanders estimates the fund could grow to nearly $7 trillion, generating hundreds of billions of dollars a year for the public. The senator’s office frames the payouts in two parts. First, a dividend — a 5% annual distribution alone, by his math, would put $1,000 or more into the pocket of every American each year. Second, the remaining proceeds would be funneled toward public programs that have struggled for funding for decades: health care, education, and housing.
The mechanism — paying a tax in equity rather than cash — is unusual but deliberate. By taking stock instead of money, the public fund would hold an ownership position in the companies themselves. As those companies grow, so would the fund, and so would the dividends flowing back to ordinary Americans. In effect, the proposal treats the AI industry’s future gains as something the broader public helped create and therefore deserves to share in.
The Argument: Who Benefits From the AI Boom?
Sanders’ pitch rests on a simple but pointed argument. Artificial intelligence is poised to concentrate enormous wealth at the very top of the economy, even as it threatens to displace millions of jobs across industries. The senator contends that the people whose lives and livelihoods are being reshaped by this technology should not be left on the sidelines while a small group of executives and shareholders captures nearly all of the rewards.
It is a familiar theme for Sanders, who has spent his career warning about the dangers of wealth concentration. But the AI framing gives the message new urgency. The companies driving the AI revolution have trained their systems on vast troves of public information — the writing, art, images, and data produced by millions of people — and built their products on infrastructure and research often seeded with public dollars. Sanders argues that the public, having contributed to AI’s foundation, has a legitimate claim to a portion of its profits.
A Proposal, Not a Law
It is important to be clear about where this stands. This is a proposal — legislation that has been introduced, not enacted. It faces a steep climb in a closely divided Congress, where any measure targeting the country’s most powerful technology companies would draw fierce opposition from the industry and its allies. No American is receiving a $1,000 check as a result of this bill today, and the sovereign wealth fund Sanders describes does not yet exist.
What the proposal does is reframe a debate that Washington has largely avoided: when Big Tech reaps the rewards of the AI revolution, who actually benefits? For years, the gains from transformative technologies have flowed overwhelmingly to a narrow slice of investors and founders. Sanders’ bill forces a different question onto the table — whether the public should be a co-owner of the AI economy rather than merely its raw material.
Whether or not the legislation advances, it signals a growing appetite among progressive lawmakers to ensure that the AI age does not simply repeat the patterns of past technological booms, where the wealth pooled at the top while working people absorbed the disruption. As Sanders sees it, the question is no longer whether AI will reshape the economy, but whether ordinary Americans will share in the prosperity it creates.