Jul 14, 2026
AI is helping create some of the world’s most valuable companies. But as businesses invest billions into the technology while cutting jobs, many Americans think they should share the financial rewards.
A new survey from research firm Verasight found that 69% of Americans support requiring the country’s largest AI companies to transfer 50% of their stock into a public sovereign wealth fund. Rather than paying a one-time tax in cash, the country’s largest AI companies would contribute shares to a public investment fund, giving Americans a direct stake in the industry’s future growth.
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“In the eyes of the public, AI sovereign funds are seen as a tool to distribute the gains from the AI industry back to broader society,” Benjamin Leff, chief executive officer of Verasight, told CNBC.
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The AI wealth debate
The survey echoes legislation introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders in June. His proposal would create a public fund built from ownership stakes in the country’s largest AI companies, rather than revenue from natural resources such as oil or gas.
The model is similar to Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, which was built using oil revenue and is now worth more than $2 trillion. Sanders argues the same principle should apply to AI: If the technology creates enormous wealth, the public should have a stake in that growth.
That idea is gaining attention as private AI companies reach staggering valuations. Anthropic, the maker of Claude, was valued at $965 billion in its latest funding round, while OpenAI was most recently valued at about $730 billion.
Sanders has argued that as AI and robotics reshape the economy and threaten jobs, more of the financial upside should flow to ordinary Americans rather than primarily to Big Tech and its investors.
“The principle is simple: When a public resource generates wealth, the public should share in that wealth,” Sanders said. “The future of AI and the fate of humanity must not be decided behind closed doors in Silicon Valley by billionaires seeking to maximize their power and profit.”
Moneywise reached out to Sen. Bernie Sanders’ office for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
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Why now?
The proposal comes as companies pour billions of dollars into AI while workers grow increasingly concerned about what the technology could mean for their jobs.
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Goldman Sachs estimates roughly 15 million U.S. workers could be displaced over the next decade as AI reshapes the labor market, while a Pew Research Center survey found that 52% of Americans are worried about how AI will be used at their workplace.
This “would be the type of automation and reallocation shock that we saw in the late ’90s and early 2000s and in other periods of significant technological change,” Goldman Sachs Senior Global Economist Joseph Briggs said.
At the same time, businesses are racing to invest in AI to stay competitive. Goldman Sachs estimates AI-related capital expenditures could surpass $500 billion this year as companies spend heavily on new models, data centers and other infrastructure.
A different approach
Not everyone agrees that requiring AI companies to hand over large ownership stakes is the best way to share the benefits of the technology. Critics argue it could discourage investment and slow innovation. Windfall Trust says sovereign wealth funds can face competing priorities, balancing the goal of earning strong returns for taxpayers with broader national objectives, such as supporting the domestic AI industry.
Others argue Americans should still benefit from AI’s financial success, but through voluntary participation instead of government mandates. Brad Gerstner, CEO of Altimeter Capital and an early OpenAI investor, has proposed that AI companies contribute a much smaller ownership stake that could then be distributed to Americans.
Gerstner has argued that broader stock ownership would help more Americans build wealth without requiring AI companies to give up half their ownership. He said he has shared the idea with AI leaders including Elon Musk, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei.
Whether either proposal gains traction remains to be seen. But as AI companies climb toward trillion-dollar valuations and the technology reshapes the economy, the debate is shifting beyond how AI will change the future to who should share in the wealth it creates.
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Victoria Vesovski is a Toronto-based staff reporter at Moneywise covering personal finance, lifestyle and trending news. She holds degrees from the University of Toronto and New York University, and her work has appeared on platforms including Yahoo Finance, MSN Money and Apple News.
