Lawmaker on Senate floor proposes American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act to give public stake in AI firms

A lawmaker on the Senate floor announced plans to introduce the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, a proposal that would give the public a direct ownership stake in the largest U.S. AI companies through a one-time 50% tax on stock rather than a levy on profits, the sponsor said.

The proposal, the lawmaker said, would place federal voting chairs and equal representation on company boards to block decisions viewed as harmful to the public and to press policies intended to distribute AI-generated wealth to health care, education, housing and direct payments.

Supporters, the lawmaker argued, want to prevent a small group of the nation’s wealthiest people from deciding how AI reshapes society. "Who will own and control the future? Who will benefit from AI and who will be hurt by it?" the speaker asked, saying the technology is built on "our collective human intelligence" — books, songs, artwork, journalism, code, research, videos and social media — and that many companies trained models using that material without permission, acknowledgement or compensation.

The sponsor framed the legislation as a way to reclaim that public resource and share the gains across society. "Since AI is built on the collective knowledge of humanity, the wealth it generates must benefit humanity," the lawmaker said, and described the 50% stock tax as the mechanism to create a sovereign fund that would grow as AI companies increase in value.

The speaker cited industry and public figures who have discussed similar ideas, saying OpenAI has proposed a public wealth fund and Anthropic has suggested national sovereign wealth funds. The lawmaker also quoted Elon Musk's public comments advocating universal payments as a response to AI-related job loss.

As comparative examples, the sponsor pointed to Norway’s sovereign wealth fund (which the lawmaker said is worth more than $2 trillion) and Alaska’s state fund, which issues dividends to residents. The lawmaker recited Alaska dividend amounts for recent years as examples of direct payments from a sovereign fund.

The proposal described in the speech does not yet have legislative text in the transcript and no vote or formal action was recorded during the remarks. The lawmaker said the measure will be introduced in the coming weeks.

The announcement adds a high-profile policy framing to ongoing national debates about how to govern powerful AI systems, who should benefit from the industry’s profits, and whether new fiscal or corporate-governance tools are appropriate to redistribute gains from technology.