Universal Basic Capital: Trump Admin Considers Taking Direct Stake In OpenAI, As Bernie Sanders Proposes Bill To Give Public 50% Stake In Largest Companies
Socialism for me but not for thee. The uniparty strikes again: both MAGA and Democrats are both aligned in taking stakes in AI companies.
Having already taken stakes in a number of corporations across a variety of sectors, the Trump administration is now setting its sights on AI startups, in particular OpenAI.
Last week, CNBC reported on negotiations with AI company founded by CEO Sam Altman, and apparently these talks have been on-going since last year, an anonymous source confirmed.
CNBC reported:
As part of the potential agreement, OpenAI could donate equity to the U.S. government to seed something like the “Public Wealth Fund” that the company outlined in its April policy proposal, the person said.
OpenAI said the fund could “invest in diversified, long-term assets” and would enable citizens to participate in the “upside” of AI growth, possibly by receiving the fund’s returns directly, according to the proposal.
No official investment terms have been decided, and the details are still subject to change. Notus was first to report the recent talks.
President Donald Trump addressed the talks while on Air Force One with reporters on Friday.
“There are concepts where pieces could be given to the American public, where the American public essentially becomes a partner,” he said. The president said he is meeting with AI companies “in the very short, very near future.”
As pointed out by Notus, there are critics on both sides politically.
Nat Purser, a senior policy advocate for AI policy at Public Knowledge, said the public should not “want a situation where the government becomes less willing to impose, or enforce, safety rules because doing so could reduce the value of its own investment.” “The problem is that the government would be a shareholder and a regulator at the same time, which creates substantial conflicts of interest,” Purser added.
Jennifer Huddleston, a senior fellow in technology policy at the right-leaning libertarian Cato Institute said in a comment, “It raises questions about how that could intrude into a lot of the traditional principles when it comes to private enterprise and the free market.”
After news of these discussions spread, OpenAI published a brief statement on June 8th about their plans to IPO (Initial Public Offering) to become a publicly traded company.
“We recently submitted a confidential S-1. We expect it to leak so we’re just announcing it. We have not decided on timing yet; it may be a while because there are things we want to do that are likely easier as a private company. But it’s a complicated set of tradeoffs and this gives us the option to go public sooner if that ends up being best.”
Competitor Anthropic announced their intent to IPO on June 1st.
The announcements come as the Trump administration has proposed no longer legally requiring publicly traded companies to provide quarterly earnings reports and instead report bi-annually. The Securities and Exchange Commission has still not made an official ruling on this yet.
The WinePress has reported on several occasions last year and in 2026 on Trump’s admin’s new policy of taking a direct taxpayer stake in various companies. After controversially taking a 10% share in chip manufacturer Intel last year, along with a handful of rare earths mining companies, the White House more recently took stakes in IBM and a handful of quantum computing firms.
When faced with criticism over the Intel deal, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was quick to say at the time that what they are doing is not socialism.
“So it’s not socialism. This is capitalism.
“If you give someone $11 billion who’s just building an America, they’re not doing something special. They’re building in America and their CEO told the president he didn’t need the grant. And you said, ‘Well, then why don’t we get something for it?’ So, it’s amazing.”
Despite pushback, there are others across both political parties who encourage a greater merging of government and corporate power.
Last week, Democratic Independent Senator Bernie Sanders (VT-I) announced that he would introduce a bill allowing “the public” to take a direct stake in these AI companies, arguing this venture is more important than oil. In a video posted to his social networks, Sanders argued:
“As Sam Altman himself acknowledged, AI models were trained on our, quote, “collective experience, knowledge and learnings of humanity,” end quote. The reality is that big tech oligarchs have fed this knowledge into their AI models without permission, acknowledgement or compensation. In other words, the creative work of millions and hundreds of millions of people has been stolen by the wealthiest people in the world.
“The time has come to reclaim what was stolen from us. Since AI is built on the collective knowledge of humanity, the wealth it generates must benefit humanity, not just Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison and other billionaires or the venture capitalists and Wall Street firms who see AI as the next great wealth extracting machine. And that is why in the coming weeks, I will introduce the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act.
“This legislation would give the public a direct ownership stake in the largest AI companies in America through a one time 50% tax not on profits, but on stock. It would do two extremely critical things. First, it would give the American people a direct role in determining the future of this technology.
“No longer would the future of AI be dictated by a handful of big tech oligarchs while the rest of the world sits back and watches them do what they want. Secondly, it would guarantee that the trillions potentially created by AI are used to improve the lives of all of us, not simply to make the richest people on Earth even richer.”
“[…] The principle is quite simple. When a public resource generates wealth, the public should share in that wealth. Artificial intelligence is being built on a public resource far more valuable than oil.”
MAGA allies have supported similar measures. As noted by Notus:
Steve Bannon, a tech critic and the president’s former chief strategist, said the talks between OpenAI and administration officials were evidence that AI companies are fearful of public scrutiny and regulation. Like Sanders, Bannon argued that the government should take as much as 50% of the companies’ equity.
“You can smell the stench of desperation emanating from the oligarchs as they run heedlessly to a public market takeout. We should not take ‘tip money’ but force them to cough up 50% of the equity — to be dispersed to American citizens.”
Both parties seem to agree with this premise.
Fortune noted that in response to Sanders, David Sacks, Trump’s now-former AI and crypto czar. “Nationalization of AI will accelerate the corporate-government fusion we’re already sliding toward,” Sacks wrote. “America won’t win the AI race if we beat China but end up with a CCP-style social credit system in the U.S.” Hours later, Trump effectively endorsed the premise anyway, Fortune noted.
This concept is being referred to as “Universal Basic Capital” (UBC); which, according to Forbes, is:
It’s different from Universal Basic Income, which refers to the government just giving regular cash payments to people, which has also enjoyed some political popularity in recent years.
The Berggruen Institute, a think tank that’s been a vocal champion of UBC, described it broadly as a large wealth fund that people could invest in and get returns from, with some kind of state sponsorship. Beyond that, it’s unknown how the investments would be focused: OpenAI’s proposal for a Public Wealth Fund suggests every citizen should receive a fund with “diversified, long-term assets that capture growth in both AI companies and the broader set of firms adopting and deploying AI,” and get regular returns off the AI industry’s success, while NOTUS’ reporting suggests the federal government would acquire stakes in a few specific individual companies.
The Berggruen Institute has suggested a few other ways UBC could be funded, including through a tax on major tech companies’ data-centric activities, like targeted ads or selling personal data.
Another idea would treat the money the government puts into people’s individual funds as an interest-free loan, which people would then pay back once their wealth compounds. Sanders’ proposal suggests levying a 50% tax on AI companies that would be paid in the form of stock into a potential sovereign wealth fund, where it would appreciate in value.
While taxing AI companies has so far been the most popular suggestion for funding UBC, it’s also raised some concerns: State-based UBC plans could struggle if AI companies simply moved to another state to avoid paying any tax, for instance, the Berggruen Institute noted.
Other UBC proposals have taken a less AI-focused approach and instead suggested more generally providing investments in broad index funds like the S&P 500. Separate from his reported talks with the Trump administration, Altman has also proposed the idea of “universal basic compute,” in which people would own a fraction of the processing power behind a model like ChatGPT. They could then use that processing power to fuel their own work with AI, or sell it off for a profit.
California Governor Gavin Newsom recently signed an executive order in May to study implementing it. He said at the time, “We don’t need charity, we need ownership—Universal Basic Capital,” adding that voters are “demanding” a more wealth-based model. “You cannot save democracy unless we democratize the economy.”
Other MAGA-aligned Republicans are in favor of these models. Forbes cited Vivek Ramaswamy, who is seeking the gubernatorial vote in Ohio, who wrote in his New York Times op-ed that government-backed investment funds would be a “practical solution” to combat social unrest against the wealthy, because “instead of lambasting millionaires,” people “would be on the way to becoming millionaires” through compounding wealth. He also praised the Trump Accounts as an “early positive step” towards building compounding wealth.
Texas GOP Senator Ted Cruz, who was instrumental in getting the Trump Accounts passed, suggests, like Ramaswamy, that these accounts “could be a new form of Social Security, and Ramaswamy similarly insisted such investment accounts could eventually replace other government payouts and be a way for people to “[wean] themselves off the federal welfare state,” Forbes added.
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, who has contributed to the Trump accounts and has praised the scheme, has been vocal in America investing heavily into AI and datacenters. Last month, he controversially revealed in a press conference with Texas Governor Greg Abbott that the funding for these datacenters will come from private savings accounts, social security and pension funds. He argues Americans need to grow and invest directly with their country, and while he understands people wanting to save their money in a bank to have a rainy day fund, he argues that that is not growing with the economy.
All in all, the government taking stakes in companies has its own risks, The WP noted last month off the back of the IBM deal.
24/7 Wall Street argued:
That said, government ownership changes incentives.
Corporate statism — where business and government interests become intertwined — can distort management decisions. Shareholders want returns. Governments often want employment growth, domestic manufacturing, or geopolitical leverage. Those goals do not always align.
Let’s be clear: investors made money following most of these investment announcements. Intel more than tripled this year while MP Materials has doubled. The quantum stocks rallied hard after the investment news surfaced with D-Wave and Rigetti both rising approximately 30% on announcement day. IBM climbed 8%, likely because the $1 billion doesn’t represent as large of an investment to its business.
But savvy investors should ask a tougher question: what happens when political priorities change?
A future administration could redirect funding, pressure companies into unprofitable projects, or prioritize national interests over shareholder returns. Regardless of how you look at it, once Washington becomes a major stakeholder, politics enters the boardroom.
[…] Still, sharp investors shouldn’t mistake political support for guaranteed long-term value. Stocks tied too closely to Washington can benefit quickly — and unravel just as fast when policy shifts. Lithium Americas (NYSE:LAC) is down 13% since its deal was announced.
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
“Corporate statism — where business and government interests become intertwined —” is the LITERAL definition of FASCISM, as defined by Benito Mussolini.
Right there, there it is. Right in front. of. your. face. This is blatant technofascism, this is WEF’ian Stakeholder capitalism model that I said this was when the administration made the Intel deal last August. This is what Klaus Schwab and Larry Fink have desired for years, for public-private partnerships for the so-called betterment of society and of its people, by ‘giving back’ to us plebs. Trump is one of them, and always has been: they ALL are!
Proverbs 30:14 There is a generation, whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, and the needy from among men.
For YEARS I have said that it is a UNIPARTY in Washington, a big club that we are not privileged to be in, and what we are watching take place could not be a more blatant example of this. They are peddling socialism, blatant, in your face, techno-fascism and stakeholder capitalism!
They word it differently, they all it present it a little differently, but it’s all the same thing. When they present these things to the public, they are not speaking to you; they are speaking to their donor class. It amazes me that most people in this country cannot understand this yet. They don’t care about you.
These libs and Marxists can never seem to understand this, especially those who laud Bernie or AOC. It’s socialism for them, not you. They reap the benefits, you get the crumbs. They reap the benefits, you reap the losses — for they can then “democratize” some more!
It’s a rug pull and then they will be bailed out again by the taxpayer by printing massive sums of currency, and then resell you that rug.
And as for MAGA — again (!), what more proof do you need that you have been sold up the river? How many times has this loathsome orangutan shouted that we don’t want socialism and will never become socialist, and how the Democrats want that and it will destroy the nation? Well, here we are, and Trump is performing textbook socialism and following the WEF’s playbook.
Yet if we point out the blatant fascism transpiring in front of us (as I just detailed, with receipts), you will be derided as being a woke, sissy libtard who voted for Kamala. If Biden or Harris did this, oh my goodness the outrage would be immense! But since Trump does it, we get silence.
Selling us out further up the river, while he obeys his orders from his globalist masters, while he and cronies pocket the money before ‘the crash.’ Indeed, “We’re gonna win so much, you may even get tired of winning, and you’ll say, ‘Please, please, it’s too much winning, we can’t take this much winning, we can’t take it anymore.’” But again, he wasn’t talking to you and I. You thought he was. No, no, he was talking to the donor class, his buddies, the corporatists, the elites: you and I don’t count; we are chattel on a giant plantation, collateral.
1 Samuel 8:10 And Samuel told all the words of the LORD unto the people that asked of him a king. [11] And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots. [12] And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots. [13] And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. [14] And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. [15] And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants. [16] And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work. [17] He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants. [18] And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the LORD will not hear you in that day. [19] Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but we will have a king over us; [20] That we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles.
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On one of his missionary journeys, the apostle Paul visited Athens, Greece, where he said he witnessed “the city wholly given to idolatry,” and who were “too superstitious” and worshipped a plurality of gods and deities, though the people acknowledged that there was still one God above all that was a mystery to them. When questioned by the philosophers …
[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).
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"This is capitalism." We have so much trust in government that we take every single thing they tell us at face value. Said no one ever.
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hey i have a great idea: let's take everybody's 401k and invest it in the most epic fails of all time! lab-grown meat! electric cars! bud light!