A recent Verasight poll shows that 69 percent of Americans are totally on board with requiring/forcing top AI companies to put 50 percent of their stock into a public sovereign wealth fund.
This proposal, backed by Senator Bernie Sanders, would give regular people a direct way to benefit from the industry’s growth. The survey happens right as tech layoffs surge and AI companies reach valuations of nearly $1 trillion.
The public’s case for an AI sovereign wealth fund
“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,” said Verasight CEO Benjamin Leff. Senator Sanders introduced the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act in June, arguing that it would “guarantee that the economic benefits generated by AI are used to improve the lives of all of us, not simply to make the richest people in the world even richer.”
The proposal targets the largest U.S. AI companies, mandating a one-time 50 percent tax on their stock. At current valuations, Sanders estimated the fund could be worth around $7 trillion.
The job displacement reality
The survey comes as Goldman Sachs estimates roughly 15 million U.S. workers could be displaced over the next decade as AI reshapes the labor market. Joseph Briggs, Senior Global Economist at Goldman Sachs, said 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.”
A Pew Research Center survey found that 52 percent of Americans are worried about how AI will be used at their workplace. At the same time, AI companies are reaching staggering valuations; Anthropic is valued at $965 billion and OpenAI at approximately $730 billion.
But this is not all; recently, Anthropic has been pressing Congress to keep existing state AI rules while also getting ready for AI-induced layoffs. The company mentioned on Wednesday that any federal law meant to replace state-level AI rules needs to include “rigorous” standards and safeguards against catastrophic risks.
The bipartisan appeal and trust deficit
According to the survey, 89 percent of Americans want mandatory public disclosure of internal AI safety tests, and 81 percent back federal authority to block unsafe AI systems. This suggests a public that is not simply for or against AI, but one that desperately wants transparency and oversight, fearing decisions made “behind closed doors in Silicon Valley.”
On top of that, the poll highlights a pretty impressive bipartisan agreement: even when the idea is directly pinned on Sanders, support only slips to 64 percent. This proves the proposal goes way beyond standard party lines and shows a real, widespread hunger for accountability. At the end of the day, it just reflects a major lack of faith in the tech industry’s ability to regulate itself.
