2nd Open Letter to President Trump: Now Everyone Agrees Americans Should Own AI — Yours Is the Platform That Wins
For Immediate Release
Date: June 2, 2026
From: Rufo Guerreschi, Coalition for a Baruch Plan for AI
Recently there’s been a growing bipartisan debate about the need to fairly share the immense power and wealth that are accruing in large AI and robotics firms and what political actions are needed to ensure it is durable, non-repealable, contributes to US scientific and economic leadership. Unsurprisingly, many have converged on the concept of citizen co-ownership of such firms as a one-time policy decision that could become non-repealable in the future.
This movement has just reached a peak. In the last few days, proposals that 50% of the stocks of large AI firms be transferred to Americans were put out independently by both Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon. Sanders would have the government own it via a new sovereign fund, while Bannon would distribute ownership individually, in a capitalist and American way and, most importantly, it would be harder to repeal if properly implemented.
Citizen co-ownership of AI labs is a great political platform for you to ride — as we already suggested in our 1st Open Letter to you on May 12th, long before those proposals — and one called for by top AI lab leaders.
Yet, the individual citizen co-ownership scheme proposed by Bannon can still be repealed by the next Congress and could reduce the US's competitive edge versus China. But a co-ownership provision backed and enforced by a US-China-led AI safety treaty, inescapable as we argue in our letter, would make it much harder or impossible to repeal.
This is a platform that your populist base, the AI lab CEOs, MAGA leaders, and even your left-wing critics and the Pope can all stand behind. We mapped it in our last open letter, and elaborate it below. The pieces are now falling into place for a revolutionary AI policy that could constitute your greatest political opportunity, the Deal of the Century.
Dear President Trump,
When we wrote to you on May 12, as you departed for Beijing, we argued that the greatest deal of your presidency was a US–China-led AI treaty that locks in American leadership, prevents AI worst risks, and ensures every American shares in the wealth AI creates.
In the three weeks since, the ground has started forming around such opportunity on two fronts.
On the first front, the prospects of a US-China-led AI treaty are fast coming to the fore.
In Beijing, your team opened the door: Secretary Bessent announced the two nations would "set up a protocol" for AI safety, while it has become clear some controls are needed for safety and national security — bringing out in all its stark evidence the conundrum of AI regulation: any federal safety regulation that will seriously mitigate the immense and fast-rising risks of unregulated frontier AI is sure to significantly slow the US versus an existential race with China for the most advanced AI. Damned if you, damed if you don’t.
It’s becoming ever clearer that a US-China-led AI treaty is urgently needed — and an ever wider majority of citizens, MAGA leaders and powerbrokers are supporting it. Time is ripe to take the first internal step, the convening of a classified feasibility committee - followed shortly after by proposing to China a joint exploratory committee — the bilateral first step Secretary of War Stimson urged Truman to take in 1945, and the one Truman tragically skipped.
On the second front, citizen co-ownership as a scheme to ensure durable sharing of AI power and wealth - which we introduced to you last May 12th — has in the last weeks, suddenly come into the center of the AI political discourse
The moral, diplomatic, and industry grounds are converging away from a universal basic income, a repealable hand-out without any power-sharing, to more resilient forms of sharing that center on citizen co-ownership.
On May 25th, Pope Leo XIV released his first encyclical, presenting it in person alongside Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah — calling for AI to be "disarmed", meant not in terms of safety, but in terms of concentration of wealth and power.
In April OpenAI proposed a “public wealth fund that provides every citizen — including those not invested in financial markets — with a stake in A.I.-driven economic growth.” while Anthropic's own CEO has endorsed last October "national sovereign wealth funds with stakes in AI".
Then came the bombshells last week:
Two Proposals, One Week, the Same Big Idea
On May 29th, Steve Bannon in a video monologue pressed the same demand, 50% of the stocks of large AI firms going to Americans, but in his proposal they would own it individually, true ownership, not future hand-outs from the state.
On June 1, Senator Bernie Sanders announced the American A.I. Sovereign Wealth Fund Act — a one-time 50% tax paid in stock for large AI firms to "give the public a direct ownership stake in the largest A.I. companies", in return for collective intellectual property that went into creating such firms. Not coincidentally, on the same day, Sam Altman spoke out for the first time against Universal Basic Income as insufficient to preserve citizens' dignity and agency.
Pause on how remarkable that is. The socialist left and your populist base have, in a week, arrived at the same conclusion: Americans should own a fair piece of AI wealth and AI power, and that is supported formally by two of three leading AI labs.
Bannon's Instinct Is the Better One
The two proposals differ on the most important point. Sanders would have the government seize the equity and take the board seats — nationalization, with Washington bureaucrats steering the firms. That is precisely the concentration of state power your base fears, and it would slow the very companies America's lead depends on.
Bannon's instinct is the more capitalist and more American one. The problem isn't that AI creates wealth — it's that risk is socialized (taxpayer-backed guarantees, soaring energy costs) while reward is privatized. As he puts it, ordinary Americans are left with only "the sweat on your brow" and the tax bill. His answer is ownership for citizens — not control by the state. That is the tradition of Thatcher's privatizations that turned ordinary Britons into shareholders and Reagan's employee stock ownership plans.
The One Platform That Unifies — and Wins
Bannon's version still needs to be reinforced to reliably last. While much more resilient than Sanders's as it is based on property rights, even Bannon’s proposal (1) could still be repealed by the next Congress and (2) could slow US competitiveness against China if China and other nations are not also required to do the same.
We anticipated exactly this — and answered it — three weeks ago while we proposed to you an AI treaty combined to such co-ownership scheme via our May 12 1st Open Letter to President Trump. This is not hindsight. Three weeks before either Sanders or Bannon spoke, we set the full solution before you.
"While a US–China-led treaty can deliver immense peace and safety to Americans, it would not, by itself, deliver one thing your voters — and many AI lab leaders — increasingly expect: a guarantee that all Americans, not just a few coastal billionaires, share in the wealth and power AI creates. … the idea of 'AI dividend' hand-outs for citizens is bureaucratic and un-American. Those hand-outs are easily unwound by any future administration, and do not give Americans any voice in their AI future. The American way is ownership.
A natural evolution of your U.S. Sovereign Wealth Fund and Genesis Mission could ensure every American family holds a direct stake in a leading AI and robotics firm — whose value largely derives from our collective knowledge. …
To make this durable, the treaty itself should require every signatory — including China — to guarantee its citizens a meaningful ownership stake in its leading AI and robotics firms, by means each nation designs for itself. No future U.S. administration could quietly unwind what you build. No competitor could undercut Americans by letting a handful of insiders capture the entire AI upside. This is not global licensing or international control of industry — it is a mutual floor of citizen ownership, sovereignly implemented.
Effective citizens' shareholder oversight should be ensured, while safeguarding competent and efficient management, via proper proxy voting and citizens' shareholder assemblies. Citizen shareholders, not citizen managers. Voting rights, dividends, transparency — without the operational interference that would slow the very firms whose performance Americans now depend on."
Sanders and Bannon have since confirmed the appetite. We had already supplied the architecture — and the one element neither of them offers: the treaty that makes citizen ownership durable, against any future Congress and against China itself.
This is an opportunity that only you can realize, as the most powerful leader that ever lived.
Sanders' populist left, Bannon's MAGA base, the lab CEOs already on record (Altman and Amodei both), and Pope Leo XIV can all stand on one platform: a US–China-led treaty that contains the race, locks in the American lead, and guarantees every American family a durable ownership stake in the AI future — beyond the reach of any future Congress or foreign rival.
The China safety dialogue your team just opened is the first plank. This is the second. Together they are a legacy no opponent can outflank in 2028 — and a 21st century defined by American leadership and shared abundance rather than chaos, dystopia and fear.
We stand ready to help. Our 356-page Strategic Memo maps the architecture and the allies, and our closed-door Washington convening, September 15–16 — The Cooperation of Statesmen — is built to help you frame and land it. As in January 1946, the right next step is a small, classified Board of Consultants to assess feasibility. The window is measured in months.
Respectfully,
Rufo Guerreschi Founder & Executive Director Coalition for a Baruch Plan for AI rufo@trustlesscomputing.org | cbpai.org
