Michigan Senate Candidate Proposes Public Control Of Frontier AI Firms
Abdul El-Sayed’s AI platform backs Bernie Sanders’s sovereign wealth fund bill and also proposes that the boards at major AI companies be composed of a majority of publicly appointed or elected members.
Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is proposing to put frontier AI companies under public ownership and public control, going further than Sen. Bernie Sanders’s recent bill to give Americans a direct financial stake in major AI firms.
El-Sayed’s campaign released the proposal Monday as part of “AI Under Democracy,” a 22-point platform that would require federal action if adopted.
The proposal incorporates Senator Sanders’s American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act. The bill would impose a one-time 50% stock tax on AI companies generating more than $200 million in annual AI revenue. The shares would be placed in a federally managed sovereign wealth fund, giving the public an ownership stake in large AI companies.
El-Sayed’s platform says he supports the Sanders bill, but would “take it one step further” by adding public control. His proposal calls for a majority of board seats at frontier AI companies to be publicly appointed or democratically elected, rather than chosen by shareholders.
The platform also calls for major AI labs to operate as public benefit corporations, with legal obligations to balance profit against public interest. It would require frontier AI companies to separate from major technology platforms. Under the proposal, companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta could not keep controlling stakes in frontier AI companies. They would have to sell or give up that control over time.
El-Sayed’s campaign framed the proposal as a response to the concentration of AI development inside a small number of companies. The campaign said he is the first U.S. Senate candidate to propose public control of AI companies.
“AI isn’t just any another tool. Even today, it holds the capacity to destroy our jobs, deny our healthcare, and surveil us. That power can’t sit solely within the control of a few billionaires,” El-Sayed said in the announcement.
The rest of the proposal includes several AI risk and governance measures, including stronger oversight of frontier models, tighter controls on access to advanced computing resources, and limits on high-risk AI uses in areas such as health care, employment, surveillance, and military force.