An AI sovereign wealth fund.

Hi everyone. It’s Wednesday, and this is Senior Editor Will Kaback. I’ve spent the past month or so flying all over the country (a mix of work and personal travel), and it’s given me time to dig into a beast of a book that’s been sitting on my shelf since the start of the year: Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. The semi-autobiographical, nearly 1,000-page novel is set in India and follows an escaped prisoner who finds his way to then-Bombay and is quickly swept up in the city’s current.

It’s full of captivating characters, but the most riveting of all might be India itself. The country has never been high on my list of places to visit, but Shantaram has made it feel like an urgent mission to get there. It’s got me thinking — what other books use their setting to the same effect? I’d love to hear about the ones that have affected you similarly in the comments or over email.

I’ve also been reflecting on how our relationship to stories like these might change as artificial intelligence becomes a fixture in our lives. Today, we’re covering a couple of related proposals that would transform the public’s relationship with leading AI companies. Then, an exclusive interview with Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) about our story yesterday and a look at why today is a big day in Barcelona.

It’s a 13-minute read. Let’s dive in.

Why are World Cup tickets so expensive?

After much anticipation, the first games of the World Cup jointly hosted by Canada, the United States, and Mexico will begin on Thursday at the historic Estadio Azteca in Mexico City. Associate Producer, longtime soccer/football fan, and Portsmouth supporter Aidan Gorman started looking for tickets — but what he found was a story. Today, Aidan explores the high cost of World Cup tickets and FIFA’s embrace of dynamic pricing. Check out our latest video here!

Quick hits.

1. The U.S. military launched airstrikes against Iran in retaliation for a downed American helicopter that collided with an Iranian drone. U.S. Central Command said the strikes targeted Iranian air defenses and radar sites near the Strait of Hormuz. (The strikes)
2. The House of Representatives voted 214–212 to pass a roughly $70 billion reconciliation bill that funds Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol through 2029. President Donald Trump is expected to sign the bill today. (The bill)
3. The Consumer Price Index for May showed a 0.5% month-over-month increase and 4.2% annual increase in prices, driven largely by increases in energy costs. (The increase)
4. Graham Platner won Maine’s Democratic Senate primary and will face Sen. Susan Collins (R) in the general election. In South Carolina’s Republican gubernatorial primary, Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette and state Attorney General Alan Wilson advanced to a runoff, while Rep. Nancy Mace finished fifth and endorsed Wilson. (The primaries) Separately, major news desks projected that Steve Hilton (R) will advance to the general election in California’s gubernatorial race to face Xavier Becerra (D). (The call)
5. The National Association of Realtors announced that existing home sales increased by 3.2% on a monthly and annual basis in May, the fastest pace since December 2025. (The numbers)

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Today’s topic.

Public ownership of artificial intelligence companies. On Monday, June 1, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) published an op-ed in The New York Times proposing the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, a law that would transfer a 50% ownership stake in artificial intelligence (AI) companies into a federal sovereign wealth fund through a one-time tax. “The creative work of millions of people… has essentially been stolen by some of the wealthiest people in the world,” Sanders said. “It’s time for us to reclaim it.” Simultaneously, President Donald Trump has been in discussions with Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI (the maker of ChatGPT), about transferring equity of the company into a government-run “public wealth fund.” Trump has also suggested the government could take equity stakes in other leading AI developers.

Back up: In February 2025, President Trump signed an executive order directing the secretaries of the Treasury and Commerce Departments to plan the creation of a sovereign wealth fund. A sovereign wealth fund (SWF) is an investment vehicle managed by the government and created to generate long-term returns for the public. China, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and other countries all manage SWFs; Norway’s fund is the largest in the world, valued at over $2 trillion. Alaska manages an $89 billion sovereign wealth fund.

In April, OpenAI published a proposal for the government to cooperate with AI companies to help create and manage artificial superintelligence. The plan argued the government should invest in updating the energy grid, developing guardrails and workers’ rights, and owning equity of AI companies through SWFs, among other things.

Currently, large private tech companies OpenAI, Anthropic and SpaceX are preparing for potential initial public offerings (IPO), which would allow public investors to purchase stock in the companies. OpenAI filed for an IPO on Monday, seeking an $852 billion valuation following a $122 billion funding round backed by the UAE’s sovereign wealth fund. Anthropic, the company behind Claude, recently completed a $65 billion funding round and is seeking a $965 billion valuation. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has proposed that his company would create orbital data centers and is reportedly seeking a $1.8 trillion valuation; the company is expected to go public on Friday, June 12.

On Friday, President Trump appeared to endorse a version of Sanders’s idea. “There’s something very interesting about it, where it almost becomes a partnership with the American public,” Trump said, adding that he and Sanders “aren’t that far apart” on their economic views.

A sovereign wealth fund managing stakes in tech companies has generated some interest and skepticism from industry experts. “Even if taking partial ownership of frontier AI companies can make sense on paper, in practice it’s a recipe for political favoritism and corruption,” said Samuel Hammond, director of AI policy at the Foundation for American Innovation.

Below, we’ll cover some reactions to the idea from the right and left. Then, Senior Editor Will Kaback gives his take.

What the right is saying.

• The right criticizes Sanders’s proposal, calling it a socialist policy.
• Some say that public ownership would allow the government to control information.
• Others express concern about the proposal’s support from young people.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board called the proposal a “road to AI state socialism.”

“Mr. Sanders wants to force companies to hand over half of their equity to the government. He calls this a ‘one-time 50% tax’ on company shares, but it isn’t a tax as most economists would define the term, and certainly not how America’s founders did,” the board wrote. “For all intents and purposes, this would be a government expropriation. It would violate the Fifth Amendment’s prohibition on government taking property without just compensation.”

“Mr. Sanders doesn’t conceal his aim for the government to use its ownership stake to boss around AI companies and redistribute the ‘investment’ gains (if there are any) to voters. Progressives call this ‘universal basic capital’ since citizens would supposedly get an indirect stake in companies, but it’s socialism with a capitalist false front,” the board said. “The U.S. leads the world in AI because entrepreneurs and investors have combined to innovate and compete. Political control would stifle that growth and cede leadership to China. It would be a tragedy for the ages if AI became the road to American socialism.”

In the Washington Examiner, Mark Whittington argued “Sanders wants to seize the means of information.”

“[Sanders’s proposal] would give the government veto power over decisions by AI companies that, in Sanders’s judgment, would be harmful to the working class,” Whittington wrote. “Do we really trust the government to have control over information, which is what feeds AI systems and makes them run? One of the features of tyrannies has been control of information, whether traditional news sources such as newspapers, TV, and radio, or the newer sources, such as social media.

“Democracy thrives on access to accurate information. Tyrannies, whether they be Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Islamic Iran, or Sanders’s collectivist utopia, thrive on the control and stifling of information,” Whittington said. “We should no more favor government control of AI than we should favor control of the media, traditional or internet. It can only lead to abuse and a lack of transparency. The free market assures that AI will be free of dishonesty and deceit.”

In the New York Post, Betsy McCaughey said youth support is a “red flag.”****

“Sanders’ bill is going nowhere while there’s a Republican majority in Congress — but ignore it at your peril. It’s a warning: Outright confiscation is the left’s latest scheme to remedy inequality and pay for ever-expanding public benefits,” McCaughey wrote. “Who likes these ideas? Young voters. Members of Generation Z in particular have a rose-colored view of socialism, communism and collectivism. According to a recent Heartland Institute/Rasmussen Reports poll, nearly 60% of likely voters age 18 to 24 want a Democratic Socialist in the White House in 2028.”

“Some states are wisely pushing back. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a new law last year requiring his state’s public schools to teach ‘the brutal realities of life under communism.’ Texas has passed a similar law,” McCaughey said. “Confiscating capital is the fastest way to kill an economy, as history has proven again and again. Sanders’ AI-theft scheme is just the beginning… The best defense — the only defense — is an educated electorate. Considering the misguided attitudes of many Gen Z voters, there’s no time to waste.”

What the left is saying.

• The left is open to the idea, with some praising Sanders’s proposal.
• Others say Trump and Sanders are taking a similar stance for different reasons.
• Still others question Trump’s views on government intervention in industry.

In Gizmodo, AJ Dellinger called Bernie Sanders “the only Democrat(ish) lawmaker willing to govern on AI.”

“Bernie Sanders might be 84 years old, but he sure acts more in touch with the general public’s views on AI than most other lawmakers,” Dellinger wrote. “On one hand, it’d be better if Bernie didn’t pull his punches on this and just called for straight-up nationalization of the frontier labs. It’s already clear the technology is a potential danger for all sorts of reasons, and the idea that it should be held by a handful of guys who are heavily invested in making themselves rich means public interest will never be their first consideration.”

“On the other hand, Sanders’ proposal does a nice job of calling the bluff of the AI industry,” Dellinger said. “It’s unlikely the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act goes anywhere, because basically no legislation goes anywhere these days, but it’s another indicator that Sanders is actually taking this moment seriously. He’s one of the few Democratic-aligned politicians actively trying to regulate AI at a federal level and considering the possible consequences of this technology being operated by ungovernable billionaires.”

In New York Magazine, Bess Levin suggested that Sanders and Trump are interested in AI stakes “for very different reasons.”

“Trump’s enthusiasm for giving the government equity in these companies seemingly shares little in common with Sanders’s vision, which is about, among other things, protecting workers and using the money to ensure people can afford their blood-pressure medication,” Levin wrote. “Trump, on the other hand, seems most excited about the idea of picking a winning stock, telling reporters on Friday that he ‘should be a stockbroker.’”

“Also likely at play here is that… the notion that AI is deeply unpopular has broken through. And the president — who was previously content to basically let AI rip — would like to capitalize on that,” Levin said. “Sanders says he will introduce the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act in the coming weeks. On Friday… SpaceX will go public, at which point millions of Americans will automatically own a piece of Elon Musk’s firm, though obviously not in a way that will give them any kind of say whatsoever.”

In MS NOW, Steve Benen said that Trump’s considering the proposal adds to “an unexpected pattern.”

“As last week got underway, Donald Trump used his social media platform to take a swipe at, of all people, communists,” Benen wrote. “He [said], ‘Has anyone ever seen a Happy Communist?’ With this rhetorical question still rattling around the algorithm, it was rather ironic to see the Republican end the week calling for a government stake in yet another private industry… He also told reporters that there was some overlap between his economic vision and the Vermont socialist’s.”

“The debate can and should continue about the merits of such a policy, but it’s hard not to notice the familiarity of the circumstances… Trump seems to like condemning those who disagree with him as communists,” Benen said. “He also seems oddly interested in having the government taking ownership of parts of a variety of private industries… The president, by his own admission, isn’t eyeing stakes only in AI companies.”

My take.

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• Sanders and Trump make a strong case that AI necessitates a serious government response.
• These proposals are incredibly bold and come with significant risks.
• Ultimately, I don’t think the trade-offs of these proposals are worth it.

Senior Editor Will Kaback: Instinctively, it feels strange to see Sanders and Trump on the same side of any issue, but they both have an economic populist appeal and a willingness to involve the government in private affairs. While Trump’s ideas on government involvement in AI companies are less defined than Sanders’s AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, they’re both following the same instinct on the government’s role in technological development. As the president himself said, the two “aren’t that far apart” on many economic issues.

Descending from this 30,000-foot view, though, some differences become apparent at the ground level. For Sanders, AI is a public resource, since it was trained on data drawn from collective human knowledge. Trump appears to see AI as an appreciating investment that a strong president can leverage for the public’s gain.

You can see these different starting points in where their ideas end up. Sen. Sanders would use a one-time, 50% tax to transfer private stock and board seats from the companies to the public. President Trump has suggested that the government should maximize profits from an ownership stake in these companies without any decision-making power. Both ideas would take a huge chunk of potential earnings from these companies that are seeking to go public with valuations the size of small countries. You might expect the companies to be opposed — but, interestingly, they seem to be on board. OpenAI and Anthropic have each thrown their weight behind putting some of their value into sovereign wealth funds. Elon Musk supports universal basic income for Americans funded by AI profits. When a Republican president, a democratic-socialist senator and CEOs of leading AI firms agree, we should consider their idea.

But is it a good one? I don’t think so.

I agree with Sanders that AI was built on human writing, art, code, knowledge, and more. I also agree that AI models have been trained on this knowledge without permission or compensation. Those points don’t necessitate a government takeover; they necessitate better regulation and oversight.

If Sanders’s bill was enacted, the use of that power would vary widely depending on who is in charge of the federal government at a given time. Sanders has been an outspoken critic of the Trump family’s alleged self-dealing through the presidency — does he really support giving this administration powerful voting shares in companies that could soon be worth trillions of dollars? His plan doesn’t specify how the government’s voting shares would be exercised, but it’s hard to imagine the executive branch not having a say. Even in a post-Trump world, a future president could use that power to push for policies that produce an immediate political benefit — like a stock-market boost before a midterm — that don’t serve the public in the long run. It sounds nice to frame these voting shares as “the public’s,” but in reality, politicians (or their appointees) would be wielding this power. We’re seeing firsthand how that power can be abused.

Separately, I’m wary of the idea that governments are entitled to dividends or board seats if public knowledge contributed to a technology’s development. It’s downstream of an argument that lawmakers like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) have long made about raising taxes on corporations. “You built a factory out there? Good for you,” Warren said back in 2011. “But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for.”

This sentiment appeals to a sense of fairness and rightfully notes that all companies benefit from public contributions in some way. But this rationale for increasing taxes would combine with the government holding equity in private companies in a dangerous way. Should the government receive a stake in every private company that uses public roads or hires workers who went to public schools? AI might feel like an extreme case that warrants this level of government involvement, but if we crack that door open, it will legitimize other cases, too.

Sanders also suggests that the government can’t change AI companies’ behavior without a seat on their board. But as policy experts like Cato’s Tad DeHaven have noted, the government can exert influence through regulations, taxes, contracts, and lawsuits. The senator doesn’t explain why these existing mechanisms are insufficient to address AI risks, and it feels like an admission that Congress isn’t capable of doing its job. That very well may be, but Congress’s inaction or ineptitude doesn’t justify a hugely expanded federal presence in AI.

President Trump comes at this issue from another angle: His vision of federal investments in AI tracks closely with his view of the government’s role in important private industries. His administration has followed up on its 10% stake in Intel last August with stakes in quantum-computing firms and rare-earth mineral companies this year. He’s touted the Intel deal as proof of that strategy’s success, and in financial terms, it has been; the government’s stake was up 300% and worth roughly $36 billion in late April. With several major AI firms planning to go public soon, not only is the Intel stock poised to rise further, but the president likely sees an even bigger money-making opportunity to work with AI companies directly.

Still, I don’t think the revenue potential is worth further transgressing the boundary between government and private businesses. The risks — insider self-dealing, abuse of public funds, inserting political considerations into company decisions, or a catastrophic failure of an invested company — are real. Even if the Intel deal hasn’t yet manifested the downsides, those risks would only deepen with AI companies in the federal portfolio. The more government money is spread around high-stakes sectors, the greater the liability becomes.

AI is still a relatively nascent industry, so what Trump and Sanders are proposing here is difficult to compare to what other countries have done. But we have seen sovereign wealth funds take huge losses — or fail outright — after risky investments or global economic downturns. In 2010, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund took a roughly 70% loss on its $10.3 billion stake in the Swiss bank UBS amid the global financial crisis. Brazil established a national fund in 2008 to support critical domestic industries, like the country’s majority state-owned oil company. After that company’s share price cratered, Brazil shuttered its fund just 11 years after it launched. Malaysia’s fund lost over $4.5 billion through vast corruption that enriched public officials and their associates, including the prime minister.

You could also look at the mortgage industry before the 2008 financial crisis, when the United States economy became dependent on a few banks that were “too big to fail,” for a lesson on what happens when the government doesn’t properly play its oversight role. None of these parallels are perfect for assessing a prospective AI wealth fund, but they show the risk of outsized investment, particularly in turbulent economic times.

Both Sanders’s and Trump’s cases for government involvement in AI companies rest on the belief that this technology will be so disruptive, so unlike anything that has come before it, that the government needs to take unprecedented steps to give the public a safety net as the technology takes off. Even if you believe that, I still think these proposals are ill advised. This merging of government and business would create massive conflicts of interest for the politicians in charge of managing the public’s stake, but the public alone would shoulder the risk of bad investments and oversight.

I think AI will cause economic and societal disruptions necessitating a government response. It already has. But the tools to address this disruption already exist and — properly utilized — can be effective without this kind of risky government involvement.

The uncomfortable reality is that we’re staring down an uncertain — and often scary — future with AI. I don’t think throwing away the principles that have long grounded our government gets us closer to meeting that challenge.

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A senator’s view.

Yesterday, we covered the protests at Delaney Hall detention center, where Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) was pepper sprayed just a few weeks ago. We reached out to Sen. Kim’s office for that edition, but we weren’t able to get him on the phone until this morning. Kim’s view was that we do not have to hold people in these detention centers who are not a threat to the public, and that as we push for their release, we should simultaneously ramp up funding for judges to adjudicate more immigration cases more quickly.

Our conversation came after Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin criticized Kim, saying the two had a good relationship but he was disappointed that the senator was spreading falsehoods and engaging in “political theater.” Mullin added that Delaney Hall “isn’t a Holiday Inn” and “illegal aliens are at this detention facility because they broke our nation’s laws.” We asked Sen. Kim about Mullin’s comments, too.

“I’m continuing to share with him what I see and what I hear at Delaney Hall,” Kim said. “My job is to govern. His job is to govern. And I hope that the two of us recognize that we need to push forward. The people at Delaney Hall — they need remedy now. They can’t wait for some new Congress; they can’t wait for some new president… I obviously disagree with his characterization of what’s happening at Delaney Hall. I think everyone in there, all the detainees, recognize that they are not going to get four-star treatment, but it’s just a matter of a baseline of dignity and decency in this country and how people — human beings — should be treated.”

You can listen to the full interview on today’s podcast (which will be live after 2:30 PM ET).

This day in history.

Inside La Sagrada Família in 2021 — Trey Ratcliffe, Flickr

On June 10, 1926, Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí passed away at age 73. Gaudí left an enormous impact on the field, and specifically the city of Barcelona, which is home to many of his distinctive buildings that eschew straight lines and feature organic shapes and surprising symmetries. Upon his death, however, his greatest work was left unfinished: La Sagrada Família.

Work continued on the church for over a century, due to its intricate details and complexity. Gaudí designed its internal pillars to resemble a stone forest and its exterior to feature 18 spires, symbolizing the Apostles, Evangelists, the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ. Today — June 10, 2026, 100 years after Gaudí’s death — will be remembered as the day the Sagrada Família reached its final height of 566 feet, making it the tallest church in the world. The final four-armed cross was placed atop its central spire, representing Jesus Christ, in February, and Pope Leo XIV will bless the completion of the Sagrada Família later today.

Although interior work is expected to continue, the cranes that surrounded the Sagrada Família are no longer a feature of the Barcelona skyline. Even though Gaudí, who is buried at the church, did not live to see it, his dream has finally become reality.

The extras.

• One year ago today we wrote about Kilmar Abrego Garcia returning to the U.S. to face charges.
• The most clicked link in our last regular newsletter was a list of the oldest bars in every state.
• Nothing to do with politics: If that list interests you, check out the most misspelled word in every state.
• Our last survey: 2,427 readers responded to our survey on the conditions inside Delaney Hall with 57% saying conditions are insufficient across immigrant-detention centers. “As ICE and DHS have been so willing to lie about so much else, why should we believe any federal reports on conditions?” one respondent said. “Government agencies have a long history of being overwhelmed when a crisis hits. And our current immigration system certainly qualifies as a crisis,” said another.

Have a nice day.

The ancient Croatian city of Dubrovnik has garnered social media fame and drawn visitors from all over the world for its robust stray cat population. Cats have been a staple in the city since its founding over 1,400 years ago, and they have long played an important role in controlling the rat population. Now, residents go out of their way to care for their feline compatriots, and an organization called SOS Dubrovnik Cats collects donations, coordinates medical care, and arranges foster homes for cats. The organization has also set up a social media campaign to capture images of the cats for a charity postcard collection. Nice News has the story (and pictures of the cats).