Buterin Rebukes ‘AI Nationalism’ as Sanders Seeks 50% Stake

On Tuesday Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin criticized what he called ‘AI nationalism’ the same day Sen. Bernie Sanders unveiled a plan to shift half the equity of top AI firms into a public fund.

Sanders outlined the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, proposing a one-time equity tax that would convert 50% of private ownership in frontier labs into shares held by a federal sovereign wealth fund. The plan names firms such as OpenAI, Anthropic and xAI and would give the fund voting rights and board representation at those companies.

Sanders wrote that generative AI systems are trained on collective human works and interactions, and argued the wealth created should benefit the public rather than concentrate with a few executives. He named Sam Altman, Elon Musk and Dario Amodei as examples of leaders whose ownership stakes would shrink under the proposal and said full bill text will follow within weeks. Sanders cited Norway’s oil fund as a model for public investment.

Buterin posted a quoted reply online, criticizing the industry’s national security framing. He wrote that frontier labs that once said they aimed to benefit all humanity are now positioning themselves as protectors of a small portion of the global population and criticized the use of U.S.-China competition to justify concentrated control.

Legal experts and policy analysts responded to Sanders’ proposal as a sign of rising public concern about AI’s development. Kevin Frazier, a law professor who focuses on AI policy, described the essay as a warning and wrote that, without more public input into AI development, backlash against the industry will grow.

Industry groups and investors have long argued that strict interventions could reduce investment in the sector, and corporate lobbying has emphasized U.S.-China rivalry as a rationale for private leadership. Several targeted firms have reached valuations that place them in a pre-IPO group valued near the trillion-dollar level. As of Tuesday, none of the named companies had issued a public response to the proposal.

Sanders’ proposal builds on earlier AI-related measures he has supported, including a bill addressing AI data center construction. The sovereign fund approach would transfer corporate equity and potential financial returns into public hands and raise questions about corporate governance, investor incentives and international competition. The senator said the administration of the fund and the details of its governance would be specified in the bill text to be released soon.