Ira Stoll writes for the Washington Free Beacon about socialist US Sen. Bernie Sanders’ latest bad idea.
Senator Bernie Sanders, the socialist from Vermont who with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Mayor Zohran Mamdani is an agenda-setter on the activist left wing of the Democratic Party, is proposing that the U.S. government seize 50 percent ownership of large artificial intelligence companies.
“I will soon be introducing the American A.I. Sovereign Wealth Fund Act. This legislation would give the public a direct ownership stake in the largest A.I. companies in our country,” Sanders announced in a New York Times opinion article published online. “It would create a sovereign wealth fund through a one-time 50 percent tax — not on the profits of OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI and other companies, but paid with something far more valuable than that: the stock.”
The proposal by Sanders—along with a May 27, 2026, piece in Time by Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, “Why We Need to Tax AI” —signals that Washington politicians are scrambling for a share of the AI riches just as ardently as any investment banker hoping to lead an initial public offering.
With Democrats in the minority in both houses of Congress, for now the initiatives, like much activity by Sanders and his progressive allies, are more political posturing than any practical threat. An “Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act” Sanders introduced in March has attracted not a single Senate cosponsor. While Ocasio-Cortez was included on a Sanders press release announcing the legislation to “enact a reasonable pause to the development of AI to ensure the safety of humanity,” she has not yet introduced any version of it in the House, according to Congress’s legislative database.
Yet the legislation and opinion articles are good indications of the impulses and values that would guide Democrats if they do take over Congress following the midterm elections.
