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US government could take 10% stake in ALL public companies to soften the blow of AGI

erek

erek

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"As Khosla put it, the idea was spurred by President Donald Trump’s decision for the U.S. government to purchase a 10% stake in Intel. “When Trump bought 10% of Intel, I wondered if it wasn’t a good idea,” Khosla said onstage at Disrupt. “Take 10% of every corporation and put it in a national pool for the people. That’s really interesting. Just take 10% of every public company.”

AI leaders have explored universal basic income proposals in the past, most notably in OpenResearch’s extended study on cash payments, backed in part by Sam Altman. Still it’s rare for a prominent investor to so explicitly endorse a national stake in private industry. Khosla acknowledged the controversy onstage but said extreme proposals were necessary to sustain social cohesion through the disruption of artificial general intelligence.

“I’ll get critique for this idea,” Khosla said. “But you know, sharing the wealth of AI is a really, really big need to level the benefits to everybody … We won’t need to do it in 15 years, but we do have to take care of those people. We will, by 2035, have a hugely, hugely deflationary economy.”

Khosla also cautioned that the rise of AI would also displace jobs, which would require significant societal changes. For startup founders, this presents an opportunity to build, he said, noting that there’s a startup in building AI for every profession, like accounting, medicine, chip design, auditing, marketing, entertainment, and more.

The VC also suggested that the nature of work would change in the AI era, as the jobs that people perform today could go away. He pointed to work like mounting a tire on an assembly line or working as a farmer as “not a job that humans should have.”"

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/28/vc-vinod-khosla-says-the-us-government-could-take/
 
I would add to the list of jobs humans should not do.

Road construction
Working on powerlines
Building bridges

These are prime jobs for AI
 
Genuinely confused here. We learned in high school about free enterprise. How does a government stake in Intel or any such company respect the economic and political traditions of this country? More importantly, are leaders leaving any space to continue the previous hundred years of economic success? Even the Democrats, to the best of my knowledge, weren't dumb enough to suggest what this thread is about. Leave it to President Trump. Does the Republican party now oppose capitalism and pretend economic fundamentals don't exist?

emphy said:
anyone screaming "communism" yet?
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More like socialism, I would think.
 
Not sure how much i can understand the nuance between that and a federal corporate tax and capital gain tax, that already exist (more than 10% of all future profit already go to the government). Specially if they are like we imagine silent share

Maybe that make it simpler/less avoidable in some ways, but I am not sure, goverments already make way more with taxes than what they would make by owning 10%, feel like, they are already kind of giant silent owner of everything at tax rate level, but with zero risk just the profit their way, maybe a better way to get international profit their way...
 
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the_servicer said:
Genuinely confused here. We learned in high school about free enterprise. How does a government stake in Intel or any such company respect the economic and political traditions of this country? More importantly, are leaders leaving any space to continue the previous hundred years of economic success? Even the Democrats, to the best of my knowledge, weren't dumb enough to suggest what this thread is about. Leave it to President Trump. Does the Republican party now oppose capitalism and pretend economic fundamentals don't exist?


More like socialism, I would think.
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My understanding is they are buying non-voting shares.

So while they would to some degree be owning the means of production they are not making the decisions.

I personally think this is a better option than just giving companies money. Certainly a loan would be another option but would have the appearance that the company is doing poorly vs buying shares, in my opinion. And to some people, appearance is very important.
 
The disillusionment is that things can stay the same, or that a degraded masses is some how better than maintaining a base level. Ideologies aside, we are coming to a point that we need something fundamentally different. I think the most sustainable thing to start with is limit franchises. We have 83 counties in my state, and 64 of them have Walmarts. Don't get me started with Circle Ks, McDonalds, Wendys, Subway, KFC, Taco Bell, Popeyes, Zaxbys, Kroger, etc.... Wooooo... Every town has become homogenous with syphoned equity over time...
 
emphy said:
So, um...

anyone screaming "communism" yet?
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It isn't anything like that. This is called universal basic dividend which is a method to pay for a UBI. Except this is more of a method to continue to invest into AI. Whenever you hear AGI then you know it's a trick.
 
the_servicer said:
More like socialism, I would think.
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^ This.
Socialism and corporatism, as I have been saying for years. :whistle:

Randall Stephens said:
Trillions in debt and they want to buy stakes in companies? The republicans were right, we have a spending problem.
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I would take this over free healthcare for millions of sanctioned illegal aliens.
In fact, AGI and ASI would be far preferred to millions of sanctioned illegal aliens.
 
In the USA even dividend are already taxed, that start at 10% and up to 37%, there must be some nuance, but corporate, capital gain taxation is already this, softening the blow, maybe for public moral/feeling of in being in the game would be more direct too or maybe they would find ways to not call those revenues tax which could change things in term of congress needed or not....
 
GoldenTiger said:
He didn't. RTFA. Some random venture capitalist suggested it.
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He may have been referring to the 10% stake in Intel. Which, yes the Democrats have 'invested' in other companies just in different ways. Bailouts, loans, emergency funds, contracts, etc. to boost them up through tough times. The "Took big to fail" stuff. Which, I could argue both for and against that kind of stuff, including the Intel investment. Is it the typical American way of doing things? No. Does it go against what a lot of us have complained about in the past? Absolutely. Again, that "too big to fail" comes into play. Intel could be liquidating assets sooner than later if they lose more money. They're a pretty large player in the US made chip market. We NEED to have our stateside manufacturing, especially in electronics, CPU's, things we use on a daily basis for not only [H]ardForum, but for our overall infrastructure and national security (defense, offense, NSA, communications, etc.). But, the government investing tax payer money directly into a public company? It's almost like a government endorsement for Intel vs. their competitors.

A 10% stake in all American companies up for grabs? AI replacing some of those jobs suggested? Nah. They'll enhance their jobs and make them easier, but won't replace them. I don't want government in private business, they're already in it enough with so much paperwork, red tape, regulations, taxes, etc.. Taxes are their stake and it's more than 10% for many of them.
 
Ur_Mom said:
Which, yes the Democrats have 'invested' in other companies just in different ways. Bailouts, loans, emergency funds, contracts, etc. to boost them up through tough times. The "Took big to fail" stuff.
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In planned to be emergency/temporary with exit strategy at acquisition time that were executed, by 2013 they were out of GM, AIG, there is a different feeling to the last Intel move.

The US were probably all alone in the world in that regard (are they the only one for who it is illegal to invest the social security giant fund... pure treasury ? usually those fund are heavily invested as tool for national goals with a bias toward local compoany, not just pure returns in mind) , everyone else are doing that 10% in Intel type of move pretty much, but as you say (It's almost like a government endorsement for Intel vs. their competitors) and the fact the US was all alone like that was not necessarily fully distinct they built the biggest economy of the world fast.
 
This won't have any sort of beneficial outcome. There are better ways if you want to subsidize certain outcomes by investing to assist the private sector towards them, , or create fully public utilities that offer services for the benefit of the nation, but simply "Oh yeah, the gov't takes 10% of every public traded company" will be the worst of both worlds. It will have a huge benefit to the private sector in an effective bailout plus future insurance that the gov't will be less likely to see even pernicious, failing, or otherwise undesirable companies should underperform with likely the largest (and often those with greatest negative effects on society) getting the greatest benefit for fear of "instability" if they are allowed to fail. In addition, without massive amounts of very specific structuring on how hypothetical benefits from these 10% investments will be used, are likely to become yet another easily pillaged slush fund isntead of going to things that increase the quality of life for the average working American. In short, its very transparent why this is being suggested by a VC, as that is whom is most likely to benefit, the rest to our ongoing detriment.
 
RanceJustice said:
This won't have any sort of beneficial outcome. There are better ways if you want to subsidize certain outcomes by investing to assist the private sector towards them, , or create fully public utilities that offer services for the benefit of the nation, but simply "Oh yeah, the gov't takes 10% of every public traded company" will be the worst of both worlds. It will have a huge benefit to the private sector in an effective bailout plus future insurance that the gov't will be less likely to see even pernicious, failing, or otherwise undesirable companies should underperform with likely the largest (and often those with greatest negative effects on society) getting the greatest benefit for fear of "instability" if they are allowed to fail. In addition, without massive amounts of very specific structuring on how hypothetical benefits from these 10% investments will be used, are likely to become yet another easily pillaged slush fund isntead of going to things that increase the quality of life for the average working American. In short, its very transparent why this is being suggested by a VC, as that is whom is most likely to benefit, the rest to our ongoing detriment.
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These AI companies know they'll fail and they want the US government to subsidize it. This is taking the Universal Basic Dividend idea but pushing governments to also invest into them. I believe in UBI and UBD but not to have governments invested into companies. Society is already invested into companies like paying electricity costs, so we don't need to be further invested into the AI scheme.

View: https://youtu.be/prZQrp27DkA?si=BP-2wUodtlvUxuH9
 
KazeoHin said:
That's... Communist mentality I'm seeing...


You know who else likes to own blanket shares of companies?
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Many EU countries (??) While similar in some ways, socialism isn't quite communism.
 
cjcox said:
Many EU countries (??) While similar in some ways, socialism isn't quite communism.
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Because communist and other anarchist project was never actually reached in modern societies (one of the first step if for the government and institution with power to not have any anymore and obviously they never do it, that word have lost a bit of its original sense and because it is a nice sounding one has been reused to talk about the socialist soviet russia/socialist china experiment (in reality they reallowed private ownership and market real quick in the 20s and was more a mixed economy in the soviet world) etc...

All EU countries, canada, australia, every country of the world has a large social ownership of companies, thing like this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caisse_de_dépôt_et_placement_du_Québec

Is the norm, Canada CPPIB is at 730 billions with the PSPIB it goes up at 1,000, some company like that one with considered crucial/historic company ownership will have:

https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/ALSTOM-4607/company-shareholders/
17% owned by province of Quebec citizen, 7.5% by BPIFrance (the national French state)

I am not sure if there any other country like the US that had a rule of not investing the citizen retirement fund into private company like that, as far as I can find I cannot find a single counter example of any other country in the world like that.
 
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GoldenTiger said:
He didn't. RTFA. Some random venture capitalist suggested it.
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I was discussing the article's context including recent government action toward Intel. It's one thing for a random venture capitalist to share an idea. It's quite another for a President of the United States to personally champion a policy and guide it to execution. The former carries little irony. But the latter has lots of it due to the manner in which Mr Trump attracted votes. That's what I meant to express.
Ur_Mom said:
He may have been referring to the 10% stake in Intel.
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Correct. And may I have the dubious honor of mentioning Nvidia and AMD? I've explicitly heard people describe President Trump as a "constitutional conservative". What? I could be wrong and frankly, I hope I am. But the Republican party is now presenting itself as the leading proponent of American corporate socialism. I'm not sure where that leaves us as a country.
 
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cjcox said:
Many EU countries (??) While similar in some ways, socialism isn't quite communism.
Click to expand...
Communism and socialism aren't similar at all. I had to explain this to my nephew because he has American politics version of what are these ism's. It's simply who controls the means of production. Capitalism says any private person can own the means of production. Socialism says that workers own the means of production. You can think of socialism as adding democracy to the work place. Communism says the government controls the means of production, which is 100% China. Hopefully the McCarthy's here understand the differences.

What these AI companies are proposing is not socialism but socialized. They want to socialize the losses while they privatize the gains. The UBI would gain a percentage of money from Universal Basic Dividends but that's as socialized as this gets. In the end it's still a private company who gets the majority of the profits. It's just capitalism while throwing the peasants a bone to eat. Meanwhile if the AI company goes under then they expect the US government to bail them out.
 
DukenukemX said:
Communism says the government controls the means of production, which is 100% China.
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not really communism say the government does not exist, it is an anarchy ideal without a central state (which is 100% non China that very much as a really strong state and institution with powers over people), local small community that compete with each others to attract people free to go where they want as they whish. China/Soviet made "socialist" state as a temporary step toward communist that never happened. Russia started to have private, not fully controlled almost right away after the revolution, China opened a lot in the late 70s.

Socialist is just collective ownership of mean of production how that constructed, which can be and tend to be via the state ownership (and has been the most common way to do this), it is rarely a system setup as non worker (elderly, invalid, etc..) own nothing, it is often more commuity has a whole than that.

DukenukemX said:
What these AI companies are proposing is not socialism but socialized. They want to socialize the losses while they privatize the gains.
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Which AI company and proposing what ? The OP VC proposition made here is the exact opposite of "socialize the losses while they privatize the gains", same for UBI (how is that in a a privatize the gain direction)


DukenukemX said:
opefully the McCarthy's here understand the differences.
Click to expand...
In a funny history twist, despite his level of what people though was "paranoia", socialism support in art, academia, etc... was probably even bigger than McCarthy thought (and he tended to be right in all his suspicions), that a "witch hunt"" that had a lot of actual ones in that case.
 
LukeTbk said:
not really communism say the government does not exist, it is an anarchy ideal without a central state (which is 100% non China that very much as a really strong state and institution with powers over people), local small community that compete with each others to attract people free to go where they want as they whish. China/Soviet made "socialist" state as a temporary step toward communist that never happened. Russia started to have private, not fully controlled almost right away after the revolution, China opened a lot in the late 70s.
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China is a mixture of ism's but some businesses can't exist in China without China owning some of it. Tencent is partially owned by China and Tencent itself partially owns a number of gaming companies.
Socialist is just collective ownership of mean of production how that constructed, which can be and tend to be via the state ownership (and has been the most common way to do this), it is rarely a system setup as non worker (elderly, invalid, etc..) own nothing, it is often more commuity has a whole than that.
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There are a number of examples of socialist oriented businesses. Mondragon Corporation is one such example and they're in Spain. Even USA has a number of businesses like Equal Exchange. The state can facilitate this, such as Venezuelan oil. It does border on being communism but Chevron is involved so also capitalism? Venezuela's situation is a strange one.
Which AI company and proposing what ? The OP VC proposition made here is the exact opposite of "socialize the losses while they privatize the gains", same for UBI (how is that in a a privatize the gain direction)
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The majority of the profits are still privately kept in exchange for some losses being socially paid. By AI company I mean VC Vinod Khosla who doesn't own an AI company but has a company who invested into OpenAI. You know, the usually AI snake eating it's own tail.
In a funny history twist, despite his level of what people though was "paranoia", socialism support in art, academia, etc... was probably even bigger than McCarthy thought (and he tended to be right in all his suspicions), that a "witch hunt"" that had a lot of actual ones in that case.
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The fact that you think McCarthy's witch hunt was justified shows that America is still very brained washed. It's like watching someone get a hate boner because they see a poster of Che Guevara. Don't turn around and look at all the businesses we bailed out while we still call ourselves capitalist with a straight face.
 
DukenukemX said:
China is a mixture of ism's but some businesses can't exist in China without China owning some of it.
Click to expand...
Which is anti/opposite of communism, that a form socialism. Easy trick, if a state is involved it cannot be communism (thus the it was never really attempted extreme libertarian that still support it will claim)

DukenukemX said:
There are a number of examples of socialist oriented businesses.
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Yes but if the whole country become heavily socialized, it will be rare for it to exclude nonworker, a small proportion of company somewhat owned equally between people that work for it will always exist in the most freemarker-capitalist society (partners firms, family, friend groups...)

DukenukemX said:
The majority of the profits are still privately kept
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there is a way to define profit to make that trivially true, Exxon mobile made $350 billions in revenues last years, net income/direct return to shareholders was ~33/36 billions (and tax would be paid on those, mix of direct at the source dividend taxes, dividend revenu on the tax report, capitals gains), Exxon totals excises taxes paid were about 44 billions without counting those, they paid 11.6 billions in salary, a giant amount of their spending are to other people from who they buy good&service that will also pay ton of taxes and with workers really well paid because they capture parts of the "profits".

It is hard to talk about profits, but a small minority of revenues usually end up being privately kept, i fwould have been profits are spread everywhere and not counted as such than obviously they will appear as all privately kept (profit are after tax for one).

DukenukemX said:
The fact that you think McCarthy's witch hunt was justified s
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That completely different that what I said, (and one big general misunderstanding now about what happened back then), the issue was not McCarthy thinking that socialist was really popular in many sector of American society when it was not the case ("paranoi"/"witch hunt"), if anything really even him underestimated how prevalent it really was, that not where he was wrong, and the suspected spy for the soviets that were killed were proven to have been serious one) ? It is more about that it is illegal/anti-American/first amendment for the state to care and punish people for their political views.

DukenukemX said:
call ourselves capitalist with a straight face.
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  • Serious Private Ownership (of the means of production, such as factories, land, and capital goods).
  • Rules of Law with Contract Enforcement (a stable legal framework that protects property rights and ensures agreements are upheld).
  • Ability to Speculate with Money/Capital Accumulation (investing current wealth with the expectation of earning a future profit, including borrowing and lending).
  • Profit Motive/Self-Interest (the drive of individuals and firms to maximize their own well-being or financial gain).
  • Competitive Markets (a system where many buyers and sellers interact, and prices are determined by the forces of supply and demand).

Every society is an heavy mix, there is not capitalist/not capitalist one usually it is a gray mix, but one like the USA is still on the capitalist side of things and a bailout does not necessarily break any of the above at a country economy scale.
 
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emphy said:
anyone screaming "communism" yet?
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Been saying it for years. Slippery slope that we are on the wrong path toward. Most people don't pay attention to politics more than making sure "their guy" wins the election.
the_servicer said:
More like socialism, I would think.
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Socialism = Communism rebranded. 100% ownership of a company is pure Communism. 10% is Communism light.
Very few examples of any pure government out there, except for maybe totalitarianism!
 
If this is like Intel don't they have to pay it back?

Of course, if they just go out of business, we'd lose the money.
 
Axman said:
If this is like Intel don't they have to pay it back?
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Depending on which of the long list of the goverment intervention, Intel do not have to pay it back the big around 10 billions that was talked a lot about, the people own 10% of Intel now, maybe one day Intel would buy it back in part like GM did with the US and Canadian government or they could sell all of them on the open market or keep them forever, there is no stated exit strategy
 
the_servicer said:
Genuinely confused here. We learned in high school about free enterprise. How does a government stake in Intel or any such company respect the economic and political traditions of this country? More importantly, are leaders leaving any space to continue the previous hundred years of economic success? Even the Democrats, to the best of my knowledge, weren't dumb enough to suggest what this thread is about. Leave it to President Trump. Does the Republican party now oppose capitalism and pretend economic fundamentals don't exist?


More like socialism, I would think.
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No, fascism more accurately describes it.
 
Red Falcon said:
That's not what "fascism" means.
Socialism ≠ Fascism
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Fascism is never well described but it's basically dictatorship with the wealthy assisting in governing. When the bourgeoisie of a nation can no longer increase their wealth then Fascism occurs. Fun fact but Nazi Germany went after the socialists violently. So yea no, this isn't even close to fascism.
 
Since the U.S. government may invest a 10% stake in companies, will the American Citizens see a dividend from the investment if the company is successful?
 
AceGoober said:
Since the U.S. government may invest a 10% stake in companies, will the American Citizens see a dividend from the investment if the company is successful?
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No it just means the government gets to spend more money on top of the massive taxes we already pay that they blow out of their asses on crap nobody asked for.
 
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