And here's the part nobody saw coming — Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, is privately saying they're right.
In one of the strangest political moments of 2026, the sitting president of the United States, America's most prominent democratic socialist, and the CEO of the most powerful AI company on earth all landed in roughly the same place. The question they're all now asking: who actually owns the AI revolution?
Here's the full story — and what it could mean for your wallet.
How Three People Who Hate Each Other Ended Up Agreeing
It started with Bernie Sanders.
On June 2, 2026, the Vermont senator introduced the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act — a bill that would impose a one-time 50% equity tax on the largest AI companies, payable in shares rather than cash. Those shares would flow into a public fund. Every American citizen would receive voting rights, corporate board representation, and direct financial dividends from AI's gains.
Sanders' argument was blunt: the companies building AI were trained on public data, powered by public electricity infrastructure, and transforming society at a scale no private company should control alone. A handful of billionaires were capturing all the upside. The public should own a piece of the result.
Most observers assumed the Trump White House would dismiss the idea within hours.
They didn't.
On Friday, June 6, President Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that the U.S. government may take direct equity stakes in AI companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI. "You make them a partnership in this revolution," Trump said. "It would be a beautiful thing."
And that same week — confirmed by the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and CNBC — it emerged that Sam Altman had been quietly pitching the exact same idea to Trump administration officials since early 2025. He had outlined a formal proposal for a U.S. public wealth fund and shared it directly with President Trump in a private conversation over a year ago. Long before Sanders went public with his bill.
The Hour-Long Meeting That Changed the Conversation
Then Altman did something that nobody expected.
At his own request, he sat down with Bernie Sanders for a private, nearly hour-long meeting in the senator's Senate office in Washington this week. Sanders had just introduced the bill that would force OpenAI to hand over half its equity. Altman runs the company it would primarily target.
The meeting went well.
Altman told Sanders he, too, wants the American public to have equity in AI companies. He said he couldn't support the 50% threshold — that would amount to an enormous forced transfer of ownership at a company already burning billions. But he wanted to work with Sanders on the general idea.
Sanders, for his part, called it notable. "Even these guys are beginning to catch on that there are legitimate concerns that have to be dealt with," he said afterward.
💡 What's the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act? Sanders' bill would impose a one-time 50% equity tax on the largest AI firms — paid in shares, not cash — depositing them into a public fund that gives every American citizen voting rights, board representation, and financial dividends from AI profits. Think Alaska's Permanent Fund, but for AI.
Why This Is Stranger Than It Sounds
To appreciate how genuinely bizarre this moment is, you have to understand the political backdrop.
Trump's base hates Big Tech AI. For months, MAGA voters have been among the loudest critics of ChatGPT and its competitors — viewing them as tools of coastal elites, censors of conservative speech, and job destroyers for working Americans. Polls consistently show Republican voters among the most skeptical of AI's benefits.
Trump was supposed to deregulate AI, not nationalize it. One of his first acts as president was reversing Biden's AI executive order, which had imposed safety reporting requirements on major AI labs. His message was clear: less government involvement in AI, not more.
And yet here he is — floating equity stakes.
The shift reflects a real contradiction Trump can no longer hold together. He wants to champion AI as America's weapon against China. He also wants to protect American workers from the disruption AI is already creating. Those goals are pulling in opposite directions. The equity stake idea is his attempt to resolve both at once: if the government owns part of OpenAI, when OpenAI wins, America wins — and if AI destroys jobs, at least Americans are getting dividends.
📊 Where Does Anthropic Fit? Anthropic has separately proposed mechanisms for coordinating pauses on advanced AI development if systems become too powerful. The Trump administration has also signed an executive order to review national security risks before major AI models are publicly released — an oversight structure Anthropic actively supports. Sanders noted this was a meaningful shift from the administration's earlier deregulation stance.
What Sanders Actually Proposed — The Details Matter
The American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act goes considerably further than anything the Trump administration is currently discussing. Here's exactly what it would do:
💸 One-Time 50% Equity Tax
The largest AI companies — OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, and likely Google DeepMind — would hand over 50% of their stock to the federal government. Not cash. Actual shares. This would be a one-time transfer, not an ongoing tax.
🏛️ Public Wealth Fund
Those shares go into a government-managed fund accessible to every American citizen. Not just investors. Not just taxpayers. Every American with a Social Security number would be a beneficiary.
🗳️ Real Voting Power
The fund wouldn't be passive. It would hold actual voting rights in these companies — giving the public a voice in decisions around safety, executive compensation, and expansion plans. Board seats would be included.
💰 Direct Dividends
As AI companies generate profits, Americans receive direct payments. The model is Alaska's Permanent Fund, which has sent annual checks to every Alaska resident from oil revenue since 1982. Sanders envisions the same principle applied to AI profits at a national scale.
The backlash from the right was swift. Cato Institute's Jennifer Huddleston called it government picking "preferred companies." Conservatives warned it violates free market principles. One former AI czar called it "a stupidity tax" on American innovation.
The pushback from the left was also real. Some progressives argued 50% still leaves AI companies with majority control. Others said the fund structure provides the illusion of public ownership without genuine public control over AI development decisions.
What Trump Is Actually Considering — And What He Isn't
The White House version of this idea is significantly more modest than Sanders'.
According to CNBC and the Financial Times, the discussions center on a scenario where OpenAI — not the government — would voluntarily donate equity to seed a public wealth fund. No forced transfer. No legislation required. Altman would be offering it.
The amount being discussed is small — enough to symbolically launch a fund, but not enough to give the government real voting power or meaningful dividend scale at first. It would look more like a corporate charitable endowment than a nationalization.
Why would Altman go along with this?
Because OpenAI needs Washington right now. The company is heading toward an IPO at an $852 billion valuation. It's seeking federal AI contracts. It needs regulatory goodwill as Congress considers major AI legislation. And it has a serious PR problem: most Americans believe AI is being built for billionaires, not for them.
Offering a small equity stake to the U.S. government costs Altman relatively little and buys enormous political cover — while simultaneously undercutting Sanders' more radical forced version of the same idea.
⚠️ The Loss Problem Nobody's Saying Out Loud: OpenAI is projected to lose $14 billion in 2026 alone, per internal documents reported by The Information. xAI spent $2 for every $1 it earned in 2025. Anthropic is the rare exception — approaching its first profitable quarter. A stake in companies burning tens of billions isn't a sovereign wealth fund. It's a bailout with better branding.
What This Means for Regular Americans
None of this will happen fast — if it happens at all.
Sanders' bill faces a difficult climb in a Republican-controlled Congress that is ideologically opposed to government intervention in private markets. The Trump administration's discussions with OpenAI are informal. No deal has been announced. No legislation has passed.
But the political fact that this conversation is happening — simultaneously involving Trump, Sanders, and Altman — marks something real and durable. The question of who owns AI is now a mainstream American political debate.
For most of the past decade, AI policy lived in academic papers and regulatory filings. That era is ending. AI is a kitchen-table issue — because it's already touching jobs, information, elections, and economic futures in ways that ordinary Americans are starting to feel directly.
The wealth AI is generating is already enormous. OpenAI alone is valued at $852 billion. Anthropic at nearly a trillion. xAI at hundreds of billions. Whether ordinary Americans share in that wealth — or simply watch it flow to a small group of shareholders — is one of the defining policy questions of the next decade.
Trump called it "a beautiful thing."
Bernie called it basic fairness.
Sam Altman said he agrees in principle.
What they disagree on — and what Congress, the courts, and eventually voters will have to decide — is exactly how much of it belongs to the American people.
📌 What Happens Next: The American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act is currently in Senate committee. White House-OpenAI equity discussions remain informal with no announced agreement. Both OpenAI and Anthropic are expected to go public in late 2026 — making the ownership question more urgent with every passing week.
This is a developing story. Follow Ampick for continued coverage of the AI ownership debate and every major development in AI policy through 2026.
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