Bernie's plan sucks, actually

TL;DR

• 1

  The 50% seizure is the core problem: Shapiro says Bernie Sanders' AI sovereign wealth fund is effectively a one-time windfall tax paid in equity, giving the government controlling stakes and board power over labs like OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI.

• 2

  He likes sovereign wealth funds, just not this design: Shapiro is explicitly pro-sovereign-wealth-fund and ties it to his post-labor economics work, but argues real funds should be passive, broadly diversified, and constitutionally protected like Alaska's and Norway's.

• 3

  Board seats and veto power are where the proposal turns dangerous: He calls democratic control through government voting shares and equal board representation a form of central planning that creates massive political capture and conflicts of interest.

• 4

  Bernie is targeting the visible labs, not the real profit centers: Shapiro says frontier labs have huge cash burn and may not even be cash flow positive, while the actual winners are hyperscalers and infrastructure players like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Nvidia, TSMC, ASML, and CoreWeave.

• 5

  A workable version would tax the ecosystem, not confiscate specific companies: His alternative blueprint includes compute levies, windfall surtaxes of roughly 15% to 25% on monopoly-style AI rents, and public warrants tied to subsidies, plus a 10% cap on holdings based on Norway's model.

• 6

  The payout should be automatic and visible to citizens: He sketches a template where 40% of returns become an AI dividend, 25% funds worker transition, 15% supports public infrastructure, 10% compensates local grids and communities hosting data centers, and 10% gets reinvested.