Solana Co-Founder Yakovenko Rebuts Sanders on AI Job Loss

On June 7, 2026, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders posted on X asking whether Congress was helping workers at risk from automation and linking inaction to large AI industry donations to super PACs. He wrote, “Is Congress doing anything to help the millions of workers who could lose their jobs to AI and robotics? No. They’re intimidated by the hundreds of millions the AI industry is pouring into super PACs.”

Disclosures show a network called Leading the Future, backed in part by OpenAI president Greg Brockman and Andreessen Horowitz, raised about $125 million in late 2025 and pledged at least $100 million for the midterm elections.

Anatoly Yakovenko responded on X with more than a dozen posts. He criticized Sanders’ focus on automation and attacked the senator’s record on other issues, calling him ineffective at solving “real problems.”

Yakovenko argued that capital held by wealthy individuals funds production and raises living standards. He wrote that adding more large capital holders would increase global living standards and cited his family’s departure from the Soviet Union with about $50 per person as a contrast to centralized planning.

He tied the debate to crypto and decentralized finance, writing that profitable financial activity will be converted into smart contracts and reproduced on blockchain platforms. “Anything that is generating a profit that can be built as a smart contract will be built, over and over. That’s the whole point of DeFi. Reduce the cost of finance to the cost of software,” he posted. Yakovenko also recently released code for a perpetuals exchange.

Solana’s token, SOL, traded around $65.36 at the time of reporting, up nearly 6% over 24 hours.

Polling shows rising public unease about AI and about cryptocurrency while political donations from technology industry groups have increased ahead of the midterm elections. Upcoming primaries will indicate whether concerns about PAC donations and automation influence voters and lawmakers, alongside arguments in favor of technology and DeFi.