Most Americans want to force AI companies to share their profits with the public, poll finds
A new survey of nearly 1,700 U.S. adults shows 69% support taking half the stock of major AI firms and placing it into a public fund. The backdrop: rising tech layoffs and swelling corporate profits.
Key points
- A June 2025 survey of 1,690 U.S. adults by research firm Verasight found that 69% support requiring AI companies to transfer 50% of their stock to a public wealth fund.
- Senator Bernie Sanders introduced the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act in June 2025, which would give the public a 50% ownership stake in the largest U.S. AI companies.
- Goldman Sachs estimated last month that more than 9% of the U.S. workforce, roughly 15 million people, could lose their jobs during a 10-year AI transition period.
- Research firm Windfall Trust notes sovereign wealth funds face a hard tension between earning the best financial returns for citizens and keeping AI development on home soil.
Nearly seven in ten Americans want the government to take a bite out of Big Tech's AI earnings. That is the headline finding from a June 2025 survey of 1,690 U.S. adults, published earlier this month by research firm Verasight and first reported by CNBC Tech.
The specific proposal people were asked about: forcing AI companies to hand 50% of their stock to a sovereign wealth fund, a government-owned investment pool that collects and manages money on behalf of the public, similar to the funds Norway and Singapore use to save oil revenues for their citizens.
Benjamin Leff, chief executive of Verasight, put it plainly. "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," he said.
The poll lands at a charged moment. Tech companies are spending heavily to build AI systems while simultaneously cutting staff, and workers are noticing the mismatch.
Goldman Sachs Senior Global Economist Joseph Briggs estimates that 15 million U.S. workers, more than 9% of the workforce, could lose their jobs over a decade as AI takes on more tasks. Briggs believes those losses will prove temporary, and that AI will eventually create new roles. That is a hopeful forecast, but it offers little comfort to someone whose job disappears next year.
Will a law actually make this happen?
Not yet. In June 2025, Senator Bernie Sanders introduced the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, a bill that would give the American public a 50% stake in the country's largest AI companies. It has not passed. Sanders argued the law would ensure "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." Bills of this scale face a long, uncertain road through Congress.
Research firm Windfall Trust points out a genuine complication even if such a fund came into existence. A fund built to earn the best return for citizens might find the most profitable investment is a foreign AI company, not a domestic one. That creates a direct conflict with any goal of keeping cutting-edge AI development inside U.S. borders.
For ordinary workers, the practical takeaway right now is modest: this is a public mood, not yet a policy. But the survey numbers suggest that patience with the current arrangement, where productivity gains flow mostly to shareholders, is wearing thin.
