69 percent of Americans want AI companies to hand over half their stock
The proposal polled is a real bill: a one-time 50 percent stock levy on big AI firms, paid into a national fund. Two-thirds of the country just said yes.
- 69 percent of Americans support requiring AI companies to transfer 50 percent of their stock into a public sovereign wealth fund, per a Verasight survey of 1,690 US adults conducted in June.
- The polled proposal mirrors Senator Bernie Sanders's American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, a one-time 50 percent stock levy on AI firms with over $200 million in annual receipts, which Sanders says could seed a fund with roughly $7 trillion.
- The backdrop: 53 percent of Americans worry AI could cost their household a job, and a Goldman Sachs economist estimates roughly 15 million US workers could be displaced over a decade-long transition.
A national survey landed this weekend with a number that should concentrate minds in every AI boardroom: 69 percent of Americans support requiring AI companies to transfer half their stock into a public sovereign wealth fund, per research firm Verasight's June survey of 1,690 US adults, first reported by CNBC.
The proposal is a bill, not a thought experiment
The polled idea mirrors the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act that Senator Bernie Sanders introduced in June: a one-time 50 percent stock levy on AI companies with more than $200 million in annual receipts, paid into a national fund Sanders estimates could launch with roughly $7 trillion in assets, as The Next Web details. The bill's rationale is that the public funded the research and infrastructure underneath AI and should share the returns. Verasight CEO Benjamin Leff said the results show Americans increasingly see such funds as a way of "distributing [AI's] financial benefits more broadly across society," per IBTimes.
Sentiment is a lagging indicator of layoffs
The anxiety underneath the number is well documented. A June Reuters/Ipsos poll found 53 percent of Americans worry AI could cost them or someone in their household a job, and Goldman Sachs economist Joseph Briggs estimates roughly 15 million US workers could be displaced across a decade-long AI transition, even as the bank expects new roles to emerge. Tech accounted for nearly a third of US layoffs in the first half of 2026 while the same companies raised AI capital spending, the contradiction we keep meeting on this beat, from Microsoft's not-about-AI layoffs to TCS hiring 9,279 people while promising agents will slow hiring. Companies deploying agents at scale now have a poll number for what the public thinks the exchange rate should be, and it is half the company.