Vitalik Buterin Criticizes AI Nationalism as US Senator Pushes for 50% Stake in OpenAI

Vitalik Buterin criticized frontier AI companies for embracing AI nationalism on the same day that Senator Bernie Sanders unveiled a plan to push 50% of those firms into a federal sovereign wealth fund.

The Ethereum (ETH) co-founder posted his rebuke as a quote-reply to the Sanders proposal, which would impose a one-time equity tax on OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, and other frontier labs and transfer their shares into public ownership.

Bernie Sanders Proposes 50% Public Stake in Top AI Firms

Writing in the New York Times, Sanders outlined the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, planned for introduction within weeks.

The fund would hold public equity, give the government voting shares, and seat representatives on each company’s board.

Sanders argued that AI is trained on humanity’s collective knowledge, art, code, and conversations, so the wealth should not flow only to a few executives. He named Sam Altman and Elon Musk as figures whose ownership would shrink.

“Let us be clear. Artificial intelligence was not created out of thin air. The data and language used by generative A.I. tools didn’t just pop into Sam Altman’s head or Elon Musk’s imagination…Since A.I. is built on the collective knowledge of humanity, the wealth it generates must benefit humanity. Not just Mr. Musk, Mr. Altman, Dario Amodei and other moguls whose companies are positioned to dominate the industry,” he wrote.

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The targeted firms, several of which recently entered the trillion-dollar pre-IPO club, have not publicly responded.

NEW: Bernie Sanders proposes the government take 50% of OpenAI & Anthropic to give the public a “direct ownership stake.”

— Polymarket (@Polymarket) June 1, 2026

The proposal builds on his earlier AI regulation push and on the AI Data Center Moratorium Act, which he co-sponsored with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Sanders cited Norway’s oil sovereign wealth fund as a precedent.

Vitalik Calls Out AI Nationalism Frame

Against this backdrop, Vitalik Buterin attacked the rhetoric driving frontier AI policy. He argued that labs, which once promised to serve all of humanity, now justify their concentration of power by pointing to China.

“One of the many things I dislike about the style of ‘make AI go well’ discourse from frontier AI companies is how nationalist the whole thing has gotten. In the 2010s, it was: ‘we’re here to benefit all of humanity’. In the 2020s, ‘we’re here to benefit all of 4% of humanity’,” the Ethereum executive stated.

His earlier writing on Vitalik AI totalitarian risks pushed back against zero-sum framings. The US-China AI race has dominated industry lobbying.

Legal Experts Warn of Public Backlash

Kevin Frazier, a law professor focused on AI policy, said Sanders’ essay reads as a warning shot to an industry that has avoided public input.

“Absent more meaningful mechanisms for people to share their views on AI and shape its development, the backlash will grow and ‘missed uses’ will become the default…,” he suggested.

The global AI regulation debate has split along familiar lines, with progressives backing public ownership and industry voices warning of a dampened investment climate.

Sanders said the full bill text will follow soon.