Former White House AI and Crypto Czar David Sacks isn't a fan of Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-VT) latest idea: giving the government a 50% ownership stake in the biggest AI companies. In a Friday post on X, Sacks warned that such a move would create what he called “Central Government AI — a system with even more totalistic power over information, decision-making, and human behavior.”
Sacks acknowledged that the proposal has some political appeal, even among conservatives. He pointed to the repeated warnings from AI lab CEOs about massive job displacement — warnings that he says he doesn't believe and aren't backed by data. He specifically called out Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman for walking back those claims, arguing that the damage to public trust is already done.
Sacks also took aim at the AI labs for funding NGOs that push agendas “at odds with traditional values,” calling it “Soros-maxxing” — a term suggesting that conservatives don't see this as genuine philanthropy. He went so far as to say he “could almost support the Sanders proposal as a stupidity tax.”
But the bigger threat, in Sacks' view, is nationalization. He warned that government-controlled AI would accelerate “corporate-government fusion,” comparing it to conservative fears about a Central Bank Digital Currency, but arguing that AI would be far more dangerous. It could “curate reality,” enforce ideological conformity, mass surveil Americans, and condition access to public services on approved behavior.
“America won’t win the AI race if we beat China but end up with a CCP-style social credit system in the U.S.,” he wrote.
Sacks' comments came in response to an essay Sanders published Monday in The New York Times, where the senator outlined his case for public ownership of the largest AI companies and announced he would soon introduce legislation to that effect.
Sacks isn't alone in sounding the alarm. Palantir (Palantir (PLTR)) CEO Alex Karp said he has spent six months privately warning top AI executives about the nationalization threat, only to be dismissed. “Why would anyone nationalize us? We’re so likable. We’re creating so much value,” Karp said.
