Sixty-nine percent of Americans now support compelling AI companies to transfer 50% of their stock to a public sovereign wealth fund, according to a national survey of 1,690 adults conducted by research firm Verasight in June 2026 and reported by CNBC on July 12.

The finding reflects hardening public sentiment toward AI industry wealth concentration as tech layoffs accelerate despite record corporate profits.

The Legislative Push

Senator Bernie Sanders proposed the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act in June, which would give the public a 50% equity stake in the largest U.S. AI companies. Sanders framed it bluntly: “The future of AI and the fate of humanity must not be decided behind closed doors in Silicon Valley by billionaires seeking to maximize their power and profit.”

The proposed fund would capture a share of AI-driven economic gains for the public treasury, fund national AI infrastructure development, and hold equity stakes in AI companies, according to CNBC.

“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,” Verasight CEO Benjamin Leff told CNBC.

The Labor Market Context

The survey’s timing is not accidental. Goldman Sachs Senior Global Economist Joseph Briggs estimates that more than 9% of the U.S. labor force, approximately 15 million workers, could lose their jobs during a 10-year AI transition period, according to a Goldman Sachs report published in June 2026. Briggs compared the projected displacement to “the type of automation and reallocation shock that we saw in the late ’90s and early 2000s.”

Goldman expects the losses to prove temporary as AI creates new job categories. But the gap between corporate AI spending and worker outcomes is fueling the political momentum behind wealth-sharing mechanisms.

Implementation Tensions

Research firm Windfall Trust identifies a structural tension in sovereign wealth fund design: the financial mandate (maximize returns for citizens) can conflict with the strategic mandate (build national AI capacity), since the best financial investment may be a foreign AI company rather than a domestic one.

The 69% support figure, combined with active legislation, suggests the policy debate has moved beyond theoretical. Whether any version of the Sanders bill advances through committee will test whether supermajority public support translates into legislative action against an industry spending record sums on lobbying.