The American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act is a bill introduced on June 18, 2026 by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) that would give the public a 50% ownership stake in the largest US artificial-intelligence companies through a one-time 50% tax on their stock, with the shares deposited into a federal sovereign wealth fund that Sanders estimates would be worth about $7 trillion at current valuations (Source: sanders.senate.gov).
Key provisions
According to the sponsor's announcement, the bill would do three things:
- Create an Independent Commission for Democratic AI to manage the fund in the public interest. The commission would have seven members nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, drawn from a bipartisan list provided by Congress, and would use the fund's voting shares "to block decisions that hurt the American people and to push for policies that help them."
- Require structural separation: large companies operating both AI and non-AI businesses would have to break them up, so the public stake attaches to the AI business.
- Direct the fund's returns to public benefit. Sanders projects that a 5% annual dividend could initially pay more than $1,000 per person per year, and argues that if AI company valuations keep growing, fund income could support health care, education, and housing guarantees; if valuations fall, "the companies would bear the losses, not the federal government" (Source: sanders.senate.gov).
Sanders framed the bill as a response to concentrated private control of AI: "The foundation of AI is based on the collective knowledge of humanity and the creative work of tens of millions of people," and the public "must have the ability to slow it down and make sure that AI benefits humanity." The announcement cites the more than 100 existing sovereign wealth funds, from Norway to Alaska, as precedent. The bill text and a summary are published on the sponsor's site (Source: sanders.senate.gov).
Context
The bill was introduced amid a broader set of proposals for public stakes in AI companies. In early July 2026, OpenAI's proposal to give the US government a 5% equity stake — roughly $42.6 billion at its $852 billion valuation — became public, reportedly as part of a possible arrangement under which Meta, Google, and Anthropic might also cede stakes to a sovereign wealth fund; one floated structure resembles Alaska's Permanent Fund paying citizen dividends (Source: theguardian.com). The Sanders bill differs from the OpenAI-style proposals in scale (50% rather than 5%), mechanism (a mandatory tax rather than a negotiated transfer), and governance (an independent commission voting the shares rather than a passive government holding). These proposals and the debate around them are treated in AI Public Wealth Fund and Government Equity in AI.
As of early July 2026, coverage did not report cosponsors or committee action, and the bill is not expected to advance in the current Congress; it functions as a marker of the redistribution position in the AI-wealth debate (Source: sanders.senate.gov).
Relationships
- instance-of: AI Public Wealth Fund and Government Equity in AI — the legislative form of the public-stake proposal family
- related: AI Labor Disruption — the displacement concerns the bill cites as motivation
- related: AI Divides (Literacy / Occupational / Ethico-Philosophical) — distribution of AI-generated wealth
- related: Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act — companion Sanders AI measure from June 2026