… the point of this is to essentially half nationalize the companies.
No public money would be used to purchase these assets / equity shares. The government would simply seize them.
Is this a perfect solution? Fuck no.
Is it significantly better than the public having 0 effective say in what huge megacorps do? The public bearing the socialized costs of profilgate profit maximization of AI companies, the gains all being funnelled upward toward the already wealthy to super to hyper to uber wealthy?
Uh probably almost certainly yes.
Specifically, Sanders proposes a one-time transfer of 50 percent of equity from companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI to the government. The idea: since AI is built on the accumulated knowledge, creativity, conversations, and labor of the American people — typically without permission or payment — the American people deserve a cut of the profits.
This is not ‘public/government money buys out half the equity of AI companies’.
This is ‘we are the government and we own half of you now, because we say so, fuck you’.
The fund would acquire half the stock of the largest AI companies in the country through a mandated equity transfer — Sanders is explicit that this is not a profits tax. The government would then hold voting shares and receive equal board representation at each company, giving it formal power to block decisions deemed harmful to the public.
It is literally ‘we own half your equity now, and have half the voting rights on your board(s)’.
So basically that would be something like doing a stock split.
In a standard stock split, private stock holders who used to own one share, now they own two shares of half the original share’s value. 2 * 1/2 = 1.
But with this, this is more like the private stock owners… the split happens, they still own the one share, but its value has been halved, and now the US government owns the other share.
Then, those stocks owned by the US government get put into essentially a new government organization that would manage those stocks snd finances, as a soveriegn wealth fund.
The top of the K, the wealthiest 10% to 1% that own 90% or whatever of all stocks/equities… they all get a 50% haircut on their AI holdings.
And the proceeds get put toward the people.
Its not technically a wealth tax per se, but it accomplishes a similar thing, in a targeted and managed way.
Anyone who thinks this is ‘the US government is gonna buy half the AI stocks’ is mistaken.
That isn’t what is being proposed, ya’ll either didn’t read the article, or don’t know finance terminology.
The latter I can at least understand, but I absolutely must explain and correct the mistake.
Wait.
Remove?
… How? From what?
What does that even mean?
… the point of this is to essentially half nationalize the companies.
No public money would be used to purchase these assets / equity shares. The government would simply seize them.
Is this a perfect solution? Fuck no.
Is it significantly better than the public having 0 effective say in what huge megacorps do? The public bearing the socialized costs of profilgate profit maximization of AI companies, the gains all being funnelled upward toward the already wealthy to super to hyper to uber wealthy?
Uh probably almost certainly yes.
This is not ‘public/government money buys out half the equity of AI companies’.
This is ‘we are the government and we own half of you now, because we say so, fuck you’.
It is literally ‘we own half your equity now, and have half the voting rights on your board(s)’.
So basically that would be something like doing a stock split.
In a standard stock split, private stock holders who used to own one share, now they own two shares of half the original share’s value. 2 * 1/2 = 1.
But with this, this is more like the private stock owners… the split happens, they still own the one share, but its value has been halved, and now the US government owns the other share.
2 * 1/2 = 1/2 {government/public} + 1/2 {private stock holders}
Then, those stocks owned by the US government get put into essentially a new government organization that would manage those stocks snd finances, as a soveriegn wealth fund.
The top of the K, the wealthiest 10% to 1% that own 90% or whatever of all stocks/equities… they all get a 50% haircut on their AI holdings.
And the proceeds get put toward the people.
Its not technically a wealth tax per se, but it accomplishes a similar thing, in a targeted and managed way.
Anyone who thinks this is ‘the US government is gonna buy half the AI stocks’ is mistaken.
That isn’t what is being proposed, ya’ll either didn’t read the article, or don’t know finance terminology.
The latter I can at least understand, but I absolutely must explain and correct the mistake.