President Donald Trump confirmed Friday that he’s thinking about the U.S. government entering into some kind of partnership with the major AI companies, perhaps even taking a stake like he did with Intel. Trump is meeting with the leaders of the AI companies, possibly as soon as next week, to chat about the details.
All of that is bad news for David Sacks, who wrote an extremely long tweet on Friday criticizing Bernie Sanders and his call for legislation that would allow the government to take a 50% ownership stake in the AI companies. But Sacks may as well have been criticizing Donald Trump, ostensibly his old boss, because the Sanders plan sounds very similar to Trump’s, at least based on what little we know of it so far.
Trump says he's interested in the government taking equity stakes in the giant AI companies like OpenAI or Anthropic: "There's something very interesting about it, where it almost becomes a partnership with the American public. The American people can benefit from the success of… pic.twitter.com/Wcy5RbbJ78
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 5, 2026
NOTUS was the first to report Thursday that OpenAI’s Sam Altman has been talking with Trump about the government taking a stake in the AI company. It echoes what some of the left have considered, and Sacks focused on those people in his criticism of the idea, not Trump.
“While I’m no fan of socialism or arbitrary confiscations of wealth, I can see why Bernie Sanders’ proposal (for the government to take a 50% stake in AI companies) resonates, including with many on the right,” Sacks wrote at the start of his tweet Thursday.
Sacks, who previously served as Trump’s crypto and AI czar, then went on to suggest that AI companies have injected too much fear into the conversation about what this new tech could potentially do to the world. Sacks said he understood the fear of regular people, especially conservatives, but that buying stakes in AI companies was not the solution.
“Dario [Amodei] and Sam [Altman] have begun to walk back their claims of massive job loss, but the damage to public trust is done, and now the chickens are coming home to roost. I could almost support the Sanders proposal as a stupidity tax,” wrote Sacks.
While I’m no fan of socialism or arbitrary confiscations of wealth, I can see why Bernie Sanders’ proposal (for the government to take a 50% stake in AI companies) resonates, including with many on the right.
The CEOs of the leading AI labs have told us repeatedly that they will… https://t.co/CqWYYhkDhC
— David Sacks (@DavidSacks) June 5, 2026
On Friday, the White House announced Trump would be trying to speed up adoption of AI models by the U.S. government when it comes to national security. But the Trump regime emphasized it would not be engaging in any of the practices many people are concerned about. Specifically, the White House said it would not be engaging in “unauthorized or unlawful surveillance activities.”
Obviously, that’s a caveat which means nothing, given the fact that blank-check FISA court renewals make just about any kind of surveillance on Americans permissible, especially under the Trump White House interpretation of “legal.” But they’re clearly aware of just how freaked out everyone is.
Earlier this year, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth went to war with Anthropic over its refusal to drop guardrails that would allow Claude to be used for fully autonomous weapons and domestic surveillance. And it’s not a great sign when those two things are a deal-breaker for the government. It certainly suggests the U.S. military wants to use AI for fully autonomous weapons and domestic surveillance.
Oddly enough, Hegseth seems to be losing his war against Anthropic, as Reuters reported this week that the dispute between the government and the AI company “showing signs of easing.” And if Trump decides to take a stake in AI—potentially seeing it as a way to distribute stimulus checks before the midterm elections—that would mean Anthropic simply isn’t someone the Pentagon can be at war with anymore. Suddenly, every AI company is an integral part of the government.
It remains to be seen whether Trump actually pulls the trigger on taking a stake in the AI companies, and if he does, there’s no telling which companies may resist. But it seems like Hegseth and Sacks are losing their respective battles to even greater forces: Trump’s fickle loyalty and his desire to control every industry in America while handing out free money to his supporters.
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