{"id":232918,"date":"2026-06-17T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/17\/ap-exclusive-bernie-sanders-unveils-plan-to-give-the-public-direct-ownership-of-ai-companies\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T16:10:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T20:10:19","slug":"ap-exclusive-bernie-sanders-unveils-plan-to-give-the-public-direct-ownership-of-ai-companies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/17\/ap-exclusive-bernie-sanders-unveils-plan-to-give-the-public-direct-ownership-of-ai-companies\/","title":{"rendered":"AP Exclusive: Bernie Sanders unveils plan to give the public direct ownership of AI companies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsls.com\/business\/2026\/06\/17\/ap-exclusive-bernie-sanders-unveils-plan-to-give-the-public-direct-ownership-of-ai-companies\/\">AP Exclusive: Bernie Sanders unveils plan to give the public direct ownership of AI companies<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsls.com\/business\/2026\/06\/17\/ap-exclusive-bernie-sanders-unveils-plan-to-give-the-public-direct-ownership-of-ai-companies\/\">https:\/\/www.wsls.com\/business\/2026\/06\/17\/ap-exclusive-bernie-sanders-unveils-plan-to-give-the-public-direct-ownership-of-ai-companies\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-06-17 16:00:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.wsls.com\">www.wsls.com<\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Proposal of Sovereign Wealth Fund<\/strong>: Sen. Bernie Sanders has introduced legislation to create a sovereign wealth fund, financed by a one-time 50% tax on the stock of the largest artificial intelligence (AI) companies, targeting those with over $200 million in annual AI sales. <\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Public Ownership and Dividends<\/strong>: The funds generated would be managed by an independent commission and would make the American public a major shareholder in the largest AI companies. This, Sanders estimates, would result in a $7 trillion fund and provide a direct annual payment of over $1,000 to every American starting from a 5% annual dividend from the fund.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Public Influence and Benefit Sharing<\/strong>: The legislation not only aims to create public wealth but also wants the public to have a say in corporate decisions that affect them. It intends to create programs funding health care, education, and housing using the fund\u2019s earnings.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Support from Diverse Figures<\/strong>: The idea of public stakes in AI has garnered interest from varied figures including President Donald Trump and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. However, Sanders&#8217; proposal is more extensive, calling for public ownership of half of the largest AI companies.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Highlighting Wealth Inequality<\/strong>: Sanders emphasizes that AI benefits need to reach ordinary people rather than just enrich a few billionaires, with public opposition and concerns about AI\u2019s job disruption growing.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Activating Public Campaign Interest<\/strong>: Sanders plans to incorporate AI ownership and wealth inequality into his campaign strategy, aligning with other campaign messages addressing public concerns about technology and economic inequality.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>National Trends and Reactions<\/strong>: The legislative push comes amid growing public unease with the impacts of AI, reflected in reactions to data center projects, student sentiment, and broader campaigns addressing AI&#8217;s societal implications.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AP Exclusive: Bernie Sanders unveils plan to give the public direct ownership of AI companies&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":232919,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/graham-media-group\/image\/upload\/f_auto\/q_auto\/c_thumb,w_700\/v1\/media\/gmg\/TWMUQ2GRJFEHZCS3VDRZYH6V6I.jpg?_a=DATAg1iuZAA0","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-232918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232918"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232918"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":232920,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232918\/revisions\/232920"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}