Overview
On 18 June 2026, United States Senator Bernie Sanders (Independent, Vermont) formally introduced the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, a sweeping legislative proposal that would compel the largest artificial intelligence companies to transfer 50 per cent of their equity to a publicly owned national fund. The bill was unveiled a day earlier in an Associated Press exclusive, on 17 June 2026. If enacted, the fund would be valued at an estimated USD $7 trillion under current market capitalisations, making it one of the most ambitious public ownership proposals in modern economic history. The legislation targets any company with gross receipts exceeding USD $200 million in annual AI-related sales, capturing companies involved in AI data centres, computing infrastructure, AI services, and advanced robotics.
The proposal arrives at a moment of unusual ideological convergence on the question of public benefit from AI development. President Donald Trump has separately discussed the concept of federal equity stakes in leading AI companies, and OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman has previously floated a public wealth fund model for distributing AI-generated economic gains. Sanders’ bill goes considerably further than either of those positions by demanding direct public ownership, voting rights on corporate boards, and a mandatory structural separation of AI business units from legacy conglomerate operations. The bill’s dividend mechanism is designed to pay every American more than USD $1,000 per year from a 5 per cent annual return on the fund’s holdings.
For Australian business leaders, legal practitioners, and professional services consultants, this development is not a distant American political curiosity. It signals a structural shift in how governments across the Western world are beginning to conceptualise AI assets: not as proprietary corporate intellectual property existing in a regulatory vacuum, but as infrastructure built on collective human knowledge that carries a public interest obligation. The trajectory of this debate will directly influence the regulatory and governance frameworks that Australian firms must navigate as they embed AI into their operations, supply chains, and service delivery models.
Key details of the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act
The central mechanism of the bill is a one-time 50 per cent stock tax levied on the equity of qualifying AI and robotics companies. Rather than a cash payment, the tax is collected in shares, which are deposited directly into the newly created sovereign wealth fund. The trigger threshold is gross receipts of more than USD $200 million annually from AI-related commercial activity. This threshold is deliberately calibrated to capture the dominant players in the sector, including companies such as Microsoft, Google, Nvidia, Amazon, and SpaceX, while nominally excluding smaller enterprises and start-ups operating below that revenue level.
Because many of the targeted companies are diversified conglomerates with substantial legacy business operations unrelated to AI, the bill includes a mandatory corporate spin-off requirement. These conglomerates would be legally compelled to structurally separate their AI and robotics divisions into independently listed entities before the equity transfer occurs. This ensures the sovereign fund holds shares in a pure-play AI business rather than acquiring a partial stake in an unrelated diversified corporation. The structural separation mechanism is one of the most technically complex and commercially disruptive elements of the proposal, as it would require corporate restructuring of an unprecedented scale for some of the world’s largest companies by market capitalisation.
Governance of the fund would vest in a newly created Independent Commission for Democratic AI, comprising seven members nominated by the President of the United States and confirmed by the Senate on a bipartisan basis. The commission would exercise the government’s voting rights and board-seat entitlements across portfolio companies. Senator Sanders has stated the commission’s mandate would include blocking corporate decisions that harm the public interest, with examples cited including mass layoffs and safety violations. This represents a form of public interest governance modelled loosely on sovereign wealth funds operated by Norway and Singapore, but with an explicitly interventionist mandate rather than a passive investment posture.
The financial distribution mechanism is structured around a 5 per cent annual dividend drawn from the fund’s total holdings. At a USD $7 trillion valuation, this would generate approximately USD $350 billion per year in dividend income. The bill proposes distributing this income as a universal baseline payment exceeding USD $1,000 per American per year, positioned as a form of UBI (universal basic income) seeded by AI industry returns. Sanders has argued publicly that this mechanism is justified because the foundational knowledge embedded in AI systems was produced by tens of millions of people whose creative and intellectual work was never compensated in the AI training process.
Australian context: AI governance, structural risk, and professional services implications
Australia does not yet have a sovereign wealth fund equivalent targeting AI assets, and the American bill faces a steep legislative path before it could become law. However, the proposal’s underlying logic is already present in Australian policy discourse. The Australian Government’s Interim Response to the Safe and Responsible AI consultation, the Department of Industry’s AI in Government initiatives, and the ongoing development of the National Framework for the Assurance of Artificial Intelligence in Government all reflect a growing regulatory appetite to treat AI deployment as an activity requiring structured oversight rather than voluntary self-governance by industry.
References and related sources
- Primary source: www.sanders.senate.gov
- pymnts.com
- gizmodo.com
- apnews.com
- americanactionforum.org
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Published: 19 Jun 2026
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