Bernie Sanders grabbed the headlines  yesterday when he proposed the U.S. government should take 50% “direct ownership” of the nation’s AI companies like xAI, OpenAI, and Anthropic. OpenAI and Anthropic are not publicly traded but are getting set for IPOs. He also wants a big chunk of Nvidia, Microsoft, and Google, too, but says those details will come later.

But guess what: the government already has nearly 50% ownership in big successful companies. Here’s the math:

• Federal corporate income tax: 21%
• State corporate income tax: 5%
• Capital gains/dividend tax on stock: 23.8%

In other words, the state and local corporate income tax effectively makes government a 25% shareholder of corporations, and the tax on the distribution of the earnings via a stock sale or the dividend tax takes nearly another 25%.

Now under Bernie’s plan the government presumably snatches an additional 50% of the earnings away from the shareholders. That doesn’t leave much left over for the actual investors/owners. We can’t think of a better way of tanking these companies, unleashing a massive stock selloff, and allowing China to sprint into the technology lead.