Sanders has proposed a sweeping government intervention into the artificial-intelligence industry that would force qualifying technology companies to surrender a massive portion of their equity to the federal government.
The legislation, introduced in June, would establish what Sanders calls an American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund.
Under the proposal, the largest AI companies would face a one-time tax equivalent to 50% of their equity. Rather than collecting the tax in cash, the government would receive shares of the companies.
Those shares would then be transferred into a government-controlled sovereign wealth fund overseen by a seven-member commission.
Sanders has estimated that the fund could initially be worth approximately $7 trillion.
The proposal would kick in when qualifying companies reach $200 million in annual revenue related to artificial intelligence.
Sanders argues that the measure is necessary because enormous amounts of wealth are being generated by AI while ownership remains concentrated among a relatively small group of executives, founders and investors.
His plan would use the government-controlled fund to distribute approximately 5% of its value every year.
That money could then be directed toward a variety of government spending priorities, including direct payments to Americans as well as health care, education and housing programs.
Sanders has specifically pointed to Musk’s wealth as evidence for his argument.
“One man (Mr. Musk) owns more wealth than the bottom half of American households,” Sanders wrote on X.
“Meanwhile, 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, nearly 800,000 are homeless and 85 million are uninsured,” he added. “We can do better. We must do better.”
But Musk fired back.
The billionaire has repeatedly argued that descriptions of his fortune can be misleading because the overwhelming majority of his wealth is tied to ownership stakes in companies rather than billions of dollars sitting in a personal bank account.
“I have stock in SpaceX and Tesla, not some big pile of cash,” Musk wrote on X in response to Sanders.
“As my companies do more and more useful things, their value increases proportionate to their projected usefulness. All shareholders benefit along the way, including most retirement programs,” he added.
That final point has taken on greater significance following SpaceX’s historic entry into the public markets.
SpaceX began trading publicly under the ticker SPCX on June 12 after pricing its initial public offering at $135 per share.
The company ultimately sold nearly 639 million shares, including an underwriters’ option, raising approximately $85.7 billion.
Nasdaq described the offering as the largest IPO in history.
Then came another major development.
Less than one month later, Nasdaq announced that SpaceX would become a member of the Nasdaq-100 Index beginning July 7.
The Nasdaq-100 consists of 100 of the largest nonfinancial companies listed on the Nasdaq exchange. The index has also become a major component of the retirement and investment landscape, with more than 200 investment products collectively representing more than $800 billion in assets.
For ordinary investors, that distinction matters.
Someone holding a fund designed to track the Nasdaq-100 could gain exposure to SpaceX without ever specifically selecting SpaceX as an investment.
Major exchange-traded funds such as Invesco QQQ and QQQM are designed to track the Nasdaq-100. When the index changes, those funds adjust their portfolios accordingly.
Some retirement plans can provide similar indirect exposure.
Certain 401(k) offerings, target-date funds and other diversified investment products can contain Nasdaq-100 investments or technology-focused funds that may include SpaceX.
That does not, however, mean every American with a retirement account suddenly owns SpaceX.
A worker whose 401(k) is invested entirely in an S&P 500 index fund, for example, would not automatically receive direct SpaceX exposure simply because the company entered the Nasdaq-100.
Retirement savers therefore need to look at the specific funds available in their plans, along with each fund’s underlying holdings and benchmark, to determine whether SpaceX is included.
The development nevertheless creates an interesting contrast in the debate over Musk’s fortune.
Critics frequently portray Musk’s wealth as evidence of an economic system that unfairly rewards a handful of billionaires. But when companies such as SpaceX grow, ordinary investors can potentially participate in that growth through retirement accounts and other investment vehicles.
In other words, the ownership of a successful company does not necessarily stop with its founder.
Musk’s fortune can rise when the companies he owns become more valuable, but other shareholders can benefit from that same increase — including institutional investors and retirement funds representing millions of workers.
That reality is likely to remain central to the political fight over wealth, technology and government intervention.
Sanders believes the government should take a substantial ownership stake in successful AI companies and redistribute the resulting wealth.
Critics of that approach argue that forcibly transferring corporate equity to Washington would represent an extraordinary expansion of government power over private enterprise.
They also contend that America’s economic system has historically relied on private investment, entrepreneurship and the possibility of financial success — rather than government ownership of major companies.
The SpaceX development puts an especially sharp point on that disagreement.
What Sanders sees as extreme concentrations of private wealth, Musk sees as ownership stakes in companies whose increasing value can benefit shareholders across the economy.
And now, through the Nasdaq-100, some retirement savers may have a financial stake in that success themselves.
The debate is therefore no longer simply about how much money Musk has.
It is increasingly about who should own the companies creating America’s next generation of wealth — private investors and millions of shareholders, or the federal government.
