Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is back with a familiar message: AI is going to create a ton of wealth, and we should tax it before it all ends up in the pockets of a few Silicon Valley billionaires.

On Thursday, Warren took to X to lay out the choice as she sees it. "AI could generate trillions in wealth in the coming years," she wrote. "We can let Elon Musk and a few Silicon Valley billionaires become richer and richer—OR we can tax AI and invest in schools, healthcare, and workers."

This isn't a new position for Warren. She's been warning for a while that rapid AI adoption could displace workers and make tech billionaires even richer. She's urged policymakers to act before companies start laying off thousands of people, arguing that the workforce disruptions could be significant.

Warren's proposal is straightforward: tax the AI boom and use the money for public goods. It's a classic "spread the wealth" argument, but applied to a technology that's still in its early stages.

She's not alone in wanting to rein in AI's benefits. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has introduced a bill called the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, which would give the American public a 50% ownership stake in AI companies like xAI, OpenAI, and Anthropic. The idea is to create a federal fund filled with stock from a one-time 50% equity transfer from these companies. Essentially, Sanders wants the public to own half of the AI industry.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk is dealing with his own tax drama—but from the other side. His chip fabrication facility, the Terafab, which is a joint project of Tesla Inc. (TSLA) and SpaceX, is located in Grimes County, Texas. The facility is seeking a property tax waiver from the county, arguing that without it, Terafab wouldn't be competitive.

But Musk also pointed out that Terafab would become the county's largest source of revenue. He said SpaceX would pay an annual amount to Grimes County that would boost tax revenue by 25%. And when you add in the taxes paid by SpaceX's employees and contractors, the total revenue increase would be even larger.

So on one hand, Musk is asking for tax breaks. On the other, he's promising that the facility will generate more tax revenue overall. It's a classic negotiation tactic, but it also highlights the tension between corporate tax incentives and the broader public benefit.

Warren and Sanders are pushing for a different kind of bargain: make sure the public gets a piece of the AI pie, whether through taxes or direct ownership. Whether that's politically feasible is another question, but the debate is heating up as AI continues to reshape the economy.