Bernie Wants a Cut of the AI Future

Is the Sanders proposal brilliant or dangerous?

OG Pantsuit Politics listeners are sure to remember the gas and the brakes analogy. When it comes to government power, Sarah is the gas, and I’m the brakes. When it comes to private power, we reverse. That was our framework for years of episodes.

This framework has, at times, been buried or obscured by the barrage of Trump-related headlines, by the complexities of responding to a pandemic, and by attacks on the foundational components of our democratic republic. But today’s episode shows that it’s still there. We’re both worried about the government (about its slowness, its ineffectiveness, its tendency toward corruption) and the private sector (massive companies concentrating power and wealth in the hands of very few people at the expense of everyone while building tools that they don’t even entirely understand). So, Sarah is attracted to the government as the problem-solver and is with Bernie Sanders. Give the public a 50% stake in AI companies and see where we go from there. I’m more inclined toward transparency and public sentiment. As people know more about AI, they like it less. Let that discontent play out.

Outside of politics, we size up the first 6 months of 2026 by reflecting on our words for the year, which we had to look up (and that probably says it all!).

If you know someone who’s been side-eyeing the SpaceX IPO or wondering how AI ended up in their retirement account, text them this episode and tell them it’s the version where their eyes won’t glaze over. - Beth

Topics Discussed

• The SpaceX IPO and its red flags

• What going public is supposed to mean — and what it means here

• How index funds could put SpaceX in your retirement account whether you choose it or not

• President Trump's June 2 executive order on AI and cybersecurity

• Senator Sanders' proposal for a 50% public stake in AI companies

• The EU's risk-based approach to AI regulation

• Outside of Politics: words of the year, half-time report

Get the Founders Trunk and all of our America250 celebrations by becoming a member

Episode Resources

• How OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX are doing ahead of their public debuts (CNN)

• The SpaceX IPO, explained (CNBC)

• How Musk’s SpaceX IPO could reach your 401(k) (LA Times)

• The EU AI Act’s risk-based framework (IBM)

Episode Transcript

[00:00:23] Sarah: This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

[00:00:25] Beth: This is Beth Silvers. You’re listening to Pantsuit Politics. Today, SpaceX’s initial public offering is expected to begin trading. It is one of three companies betting big on artificial intelligence and the stock market right now. Now, if those sentences make your eyes roll back in your head, we’re here to help.

[00:00:49] Sarah: Stay with us.

[00:00:50] Beth: We can do this, you guys. We’re going to talk about what it means for AI companies to go public, and really what does it mean for these companies to be accountable to anyone for their actions? And then Outside of Politics, we’re about halfway through 2026 somehow, so we’re going to do a little check-in on the year so far. Sarah asked me how my word was going this year, and I said, “I don’t remember what my word was.” So we’re going to dive into that.

[00:01:14] Sarah: Before we get started, we want to be sure you know about a very special gift Beth has created for families to celebrate America 250. Maybe your family members have seen the painting of Washington crossing the Delaware, but do they know why we were, in fact, crossing the Delaware? Do they know that he and his worn-out, hungry, cold... They’re always cold. I’ve been reading books on the Revolutionary War. They are either sweltering or cold. There is no in between. In this particular instance, they were so cold they were ready to give up. They crossed on Christmas night in the snow as a Hail Mary, hoping that a victory against Hessian troops fighting for the British might put some pep in the patriotic step. She has written a short family play to help people of all ages remember and retell the story using props that you have around your house. It’s one of six stories in what we’re calling The Founders Trunk. As you tell these stories, everyone in the family signs a copy of the Declaration of Independence and receives a founder certificate because we’re still writing America’s story together. You can download the stories for free as a premium member of our Substack community. The link is in the show notes.

[00:02:22] Beth: Next up, let’s talk about artificial intelligence and the markets.

[00:02:36] Sarah: Beth, I followed this reporting lightly. I have sensed some red flags. Is that instinct good?

[00:02:43] Beth: It’s a good instinct. It’s a good instinct that you have with the red flags.

[00:02:47] Sarah: Thanks. Thanks. Thanks.

[00:02:48] Beth: You know how for a long time the conservative mantra for problems in society has been, “Well, the market will regulate.” That we don’t need the government to regulate, the market will regulate. I myself have advocated for the market as the best regulator of most issues in society.

[00:03:08] Sarah: Okay, where are you at on that now?

[00:03:10] Beth: Well, I’m struggling to believe that we have a real market anymore.

[00:03:15] Sarah: Okay.

[00:03:16] Beth: And the SpaceX IPO in particular is challenging my belief in a real market.

[00:03:23] Sarah: Okay.

[00:03:24] Beth: Because as with so many things, there are increasingly wealthy-- and wealthy is not even the right word anymore

[00:03:33] Sarah: We need another word.

[00:03:35] Beth: We need another word. I’ll just use mega-wealthy for today. There are increasingly mega-wealthy people who think, “You know what? I know it’s usually done this way, but that is not my way.” So why don’t we just start there with SpaceX.

[00:03:48] Sarah: Okay.

[00:03:49] Beth: You said you’ve seen some red flags. What has grabbed your attention so far?

[00:03:53] Sarah: Well, it just feels like there’s a lot of I don’t want to follow this. I don’t want to tell you this part of the IPO. The prospectus doesn’t need this section. Also I’m just going to shove a bunch of businesses together and hope you don’t notice. Am I getting the high points right?

[00:04:11] Beth: You are, but wait, there’s more. So one thing to know is that Elon Musk has used 23 different banks in putting this together.

[00:04:21] Sarah: That’s a red flag.

[00:04:21] Beth: Now, why do you do that? You do that because you want to conflict everybody out of acting in any way that’s hostile to you, right? So that limits the number of independent research and analysis that would usually be out there about this kind of IPO because the banks are all in the deal somewhere. Also, instead of the market setting a price, which is what the market exists to do, Elon has just said it’s $135 per share, take it or leave it.

[00:04:50] Sarah: Okay.

[00:04:50] Beth: I’ve set the valuation. He’s looking for a $1.77 trillion market cap.

[00:04:56] Sarah: Why do we even need the prospectus? Should it just be his picture?

[00:04:59] Beth: I think that’s right. And honestly, if any other company tried this I think most of the world would laugh and move on. And I’m really curious to see what happens here. I think that there is this mythology around Elon Musk now where people just don’t want to bet against him.

[00:05:19] Sarah: Yeah.

[00:05:21] Beth: And he feeds into that mythology. So if you just ask yourself, what is a SpaceX? What is happening here? The prospectus is written like science fiction. It says, “SpaceX’s mission is to build the systems and technologies necessary to make life multi-planetary, to understand the true nature of the universe, and to extend the light of consciousness to the stars.

[00:05:47] Sarah: Okay. Can we level set here? Just for all of us who aren’t exploring IPOs on a regular basis. A perspective should be like privately this is how our company has been investing, and this is how much money we’ve made. Project that out. This is the plan. This is the data to back up the plan. Correct? Am I wrong about that?

[00:06:13] Beth: This is what it costs us to do our business and this is what we make when we do it, and here’s where we’re going and why we think we can keep growing. Because that’s really what happens when you go public. When you go public, you have added all of these shareholders who now expect growth every single quarter. When you’re operating in private, you can have objectives like understanding the true nature of the universe, and you can say, “We’re going to take a big swing and we’re going to lose on that for quite some time.” But going public means I think I’ve built this thing at a way where it is just going to keep making more money for shareholders. And SpaceX today is not making that much money. There’s a lot of money involved, but the revenue in engine of SpaceX is Starlink, those internet satellites that we’ve talked about in connection with the war in Ukraine and elsewhere in the world. That was SpaceX’s only profitable business last year. Those Starlink satellites have a useful life of five years. So you’ve got a really expensive cycle of having to replace equipment here.

[00:07:21] Sarah: I did not know that. Because I do believe in the business model of Starlink. Starlink is huge. Yes. It’s important. I know people who use Starlink. It’s been, like, so made him more influential than I prefer with regards to Ukraine and around the world. If this was a Starlink prospectus, I don’t think I’d get to a trillion market cap, but there would be some there.

[00:07:44] Beth: It is also a controversial business because it adds to a lot of stuff in space and countries around the world get annoyed about that. And while it is adding subscribers, its revenue per subscriber is actually down. So that’s the best part of what’s going on at SpaceX.

[00:08:02] Sarah: The best part is the part where revenue is down.

[00:08:05] Beth: Where revenue per subscriber is down.

[00:08:07] Sarah: Okay, just want to make them know.

[00:08:08] Beth: Okay. And where you know you’ve got expensive replacement costs that are going to be ongoing. It’s not like we built the thing and now the thing just runs.

[00:08:16] Sarah: Right.

[00:08:16] Beth: The thing has a shelf life, for sure. So you have that piece going on. That makes you know that a lot of this trillion-dollar valuation is in the AI side, which is just not making money. The AI side is not making money. And the multi-planetary part is if NASA is any indicator, always going to be we take big swings and sometimes they work, and a lot of times they don’t because this is all experimental.

[00:08:48] Sarah: Well, and to the artificial intelligence side because this is the first IPO, but now we have Anthropic, OpenAI getting closer and closer to filing as well. And to me this is it. The thing is, not all these big dogs are going to rise to the top. So with their filings, we see a similar pattern to me which is, first of all, they’re investing in all these data centers and stuff that don’t have an internal shelf life, right? Like they’re not going to live forever. They’re going to have to be replaced. Now, I think OpenAI and Anthropic have much better proof as far as earning money. They’re still not earning enough, but I think Anthropic’s becoming like the business choice. But they’re not only limited by the data centers and the energy, there’s all this chatter about just computing capacity. And these two companies, OpenAI and Anthropic, are way further down the road than Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence. And this is a market. I think it is a behemoth of a market, but everybody’s not going to survive, right? There are going to be some winners and losers in this AI race, not just between nations, but between companies. And I think we’re all just supposed to trust that because it’s Elon Musk’s name on it, it’s going to be him. Even the stuff that he has been a big winner at, like Tesla, ain’t doing so great. It’s not like he’s still the winner when it comes to electric cars. So I don’t get it. I’m just going to be honest. I don’t get it.

[00:10:19] Beth: He’s going first, and that gives him an opportunity to set the terms of the competition going forward. So in addition to setting the share price as just take it or leave it, this is the share price, he is personally going to retain eighty-five point one percent of shareholder votes. So there is a lot of I want the benefit of being public without the burden of being public here. And he has collaborators in changing the rules. So let’s take Fidelity as an example.

[00:10:50] Sarah: Okay.

[00:10:50] Beth: Fidelity has a longtime rule against putting shares of stock into small retail client portfolios during the IPO because they’re just trying to guard against the hype. Is this thing for real or is it a flash in the pan kind of situation?

[00:11:04] Sarah: Okay.

[00:11:05] Beth: So usually Fidelity would allow IPO investments only for clients who have at least $500,000 in their brokerage accounts. We’re protecting the people who have put their life savings with us, don’t know the market. We want to hedge against the risk of the IPO hype. For SpaceX, they have cut that threshold to $2,000.

[00:11:25] Sarah: Whoa.

[00:11:26] Beth: From $500,000 to $2,000 to get invested here. And the LA Times did a really excellent piece about this that we’ll link in the notes where they said this is just one example of how Wall Street has been moving the investment goalpost, in part because Elon has put everybody in the deal, so they’re all working to make sure that they get a piece of this and that this is as big as possible. And this means that a lot of us are going to end up with SpaceX in our portfolios whether we ask for it or not because managers of stock index funds have to add a stock to their holdings once it’s added to the index that they track. So SpaceX’s fortunes here could massively impact retirement accounts for ordinary people. You can think to yourself, SpaceX IPO, blah, blah, blah, don’t care, but this is reshaping how the market works in general and also will reshape some of our portfolios without our knowledge.

[00:12:24] Sarah: Well, and this is a trend that they’ve been wanting to get their hands on ordinary investors for a long time because it opens up a lot of money. It just opens up a lot. You get your hands on index funds and retirement funds that opens up a lot of money, but it also puts a lot of risk on people who can’t afford that much risk. We have a bunch of our retirement in index funds. I don’t want any of this. I don’t want to be a part of this, man, but it’s hard to... the index funds have freaked me out for a long time because companies are supposed to run under the direction, and interest of the stockholders. Well, what does it mean when the stockholders or this index fund like so many layers removed from any real person or really... I think that’s why you see the increasing role of activist investors because there is a place for somebody, any kind of real human with a voice to step up and go, “This is not what we want,” and Elon’s run into this six ways to Sundays over at Tesla. So this sort of movement to get their hands into retirement accounts and pensions and funds and it’s very concerning to me, especially when there are so many red flags with this particular IPO

[00:13:33] Beth: That’s why I think it’s worth talking about. You have a sense that the rules are changing for people at the top. When you dig into those rules changing around the stability of markets, which for better and worse we have decided is the grading system for our public policy in so many ways, you just realize that it’s all getting more and more opaque and farther away from accountability. If a company can be public and one guy still has 85% of shareholder votes, what’s happening? If he can set the price like this, what’s happening? Now, OpenAI and Anthropic have done confidential filings, which means that right now they’re just soliciting feedback from regulators. They do not have to show investors all their cards. What cards will they show investors, though? If SpaceX does this really successfully, do we think that OpenAI and Anthropic are going to say, “Never mind, I’m just going to go back to the old way”?

[00:14:37] Sarah: Yeah.

[00:14:38] Beth: I don’t think so. What’s the incentive for any company to go back to the old way if they see that you can access all this new capital and retain this level of control over the thing?

[00:14:47] Sarah: Yeah.

[00:14:49] Beth: That is why I am questioning whether the market can actually regulate here. So if it’s not the market, let’s talk about some other paths to potential accountability for these companies.

[00:14:53] Sarah: Please, let’s do.

[00:14:59] Beth: From the executive branch, we get the sense that they’re still buying the market as the regulator. So the president signed an executive order on June 2nd, where he brags about slashing bureaucratic constraints and refusing to stifle innovation with overly burdensome regulation, and talks about how AI dominance for America is necessary to our security. And then he says, “Hey, guys, would you please show us your new stuff 30 days in advance so we could just chat about it?”

[00:15:43] Sarah: Yeah, not to do anything. If you show us these new models and there’s problems, I don’t know what happens next. Because all they’ve asked politely, self-regulation- I would not even call this just self-regulation. I would barely call this regulation. Just please show us, and we’re not going to say there’s any consequences if you show us something that’s concerning.

[00:16:02] Beth: I think voluntary self-regulation is the best case scenario of this order because running throughout the order is this sense that AI companies will be collaborators and partners with the government as it relates to cybersecurity. Cybersecurity is very important to me, and I can see the positive side of that sort of collaboration, but I also see a very dark side for civil liberties, for information collection, for government interference with the private market, for criminal justice. A long list of horribles parades through my mind as I think about that sort of partnership if that is where we’re headed.

[00:16:47] Sarah: Well, I hope that’s not where we’re headed, and I can’t believe that is where we’re headed when the companies themselves are like, “I don’t think self-regulation’s going to get it done.” OpenAI and Sam Altman have released several statements and policy objectives and ideas about, like, how to do this, and none of them include we’ll just try our best.

[00:17:06] Beth: It’s difficult for me to read those statements and take them at face value though because especially Sam Altman has shifted over time in the way he discusses this, and it seems like he’s surfing public opinion as he does. I think the AI companies know that they are in deep with the public right now. Public sentiment is really turning against them, and especially against the data centers. And so sometimes I read those pleas as “Don’t blame us. Blame your members of Congress who aren’t doing anything. We’re just over here trying to build the best businesses we can to benefit everyone and make life better. If the government’s not doing its job, that’s not on us.”

[00:17:50] Sarah: What are the members of Congress up to, Beth?

[00:17:54] Beth: Well, let’s begin with Senator Sanders, who you will not be surprised to hear has a problem with the bigness of these companies and their control over society and the amount of wealth being concentrated here.

[00:18:06] Sarah:  Hey, you know what? Same, Bernie. Same

[00:18:09] Beth: So Bernie’s proposal is that because these companies have been built on the back of publicly funded research and trained on the creative work of millions of people who didn’t consent to having their creative work fed to these machines--

[00:18:25] Sarah:  Including us.

[00:18:27] Beth: That the public should get a piece. That if these companies go public, then they should pay a one-time tax consisting of 50% of their stock, and that would go into a sovereign wealth fund intended to distribute gains to the public.

[00:18:47] Sarah: I got to be honest, Beth, I like it. I like it. I think it’s a good idea. And I understand that we’ve never done anything like this before, but I think this is a technology unlike any we’ve ever seen, and I think it gets in front of the anything else we try will be too slow as it adapts. And I don’t know, I kind of dig it.

[00:19:06] Beth: I see those points. I do not dig it.

[00:19:10] Sarah: I knew you weren’t going to like it.

[00:19:13] Beth: I’m sorry. I don’t like it. I think that, again, I have real concerns about collaboration between the government and AI companies. I have real distrust that money that went into a sovereign wealth fund would actually make its way back to the public. When we have members of Congress right now talking about how they’re going to cut away at Medicaid fraud to pay for the war, I don’t feel rosy about the possibility that a sovereign wealth fund from AI profit will end up in the hands of individual people. I also think that when the government starts to take stakes in businesses, it just changes industries. I haven’t been supportive of Trump wanting to take a stake in Spirit Airlines. I don’t like the rare earth mining companies conversations that are going on, the chips. I just think that’s beyond the scope of what the federal government exists to do. So while I agree with some of the instincts that led Bernie Sanders to this conclusion feels wrong to me.

[00:20:22] Sarah: Okay. Here’s the thing. I hear your concerns. I get it. I think literally any other industry, I get it. I do. I just think we have to acknowledge this is a different beast entirely. And so previous regulatory frameworks are going to be too slow too clunky I just don’t think they’re going to meet the moment, and I think to the sovereign wealth fund of it all, yeah, we haven’t tried something like that before. I think it would have to be written into legislation in a way that’s real tight. It’s not like we’ve never done anything like this before. Like we have a big fund that pays out. We have some experience with Social Security, like which we invented and which was hard but works pretty damn well, to say “We’re going to put this money in a pot, and we’re going to get it back to Americans.” I believe in us. I think we could do it because I think it’s going to have to be something big and innovative to meet the moment, and so this is the only thing I’ve heard that gets close. I understand there’s state proposals, which I don’t think are going to last because I think the federal government’s going to come in and occupy the field. I understand that the EU is going to do stuff, but they also don’t have a good track record when it comes to trying to regulate technology in a way that actually improves it, gets to the stated goal without just making everything clunky. They’re the reason we have to click that stupid accept cookies thing every damn time. So I don’t know. I think it’s going to have to be big and very different. This is a whiteboard moment. Now, do I trust the likes of the Trump administration in this whiteboard moment? No, but I do trust Bernie Sanders, for what it’s worth.

[00:22:17] Beth: Bernie Sanders as the creator of this legislation, though, would have almost nothing to do with how it’s executed well into the future. If AI is as revolutionary as AI companies tell us it will be, won’t we be making this argument about every industry? Won’t every industry be so different that something totally new and innovative has to happen to meet the moment? And yes, we have some experience with these funds. Alaska’s sovereign wealth fund, I think, is the best example, the most direct example, right? Because Alaska is so abundant in natural resources. Some of the money makes its way back to citizens and actually does. Social Security is a tough example, though, because we took that pot of money and we steal from it constantly to pay for other things to the point that we risk insolvency around Social Security and are having lots of conversations about how to make sure that we have stability around that system. Putting all of that aside, let’s assume we could create a sovereign wealth fund, that the legislation around it could be crafted intelligently and with an eye toward the common person, which I do believe is Senator Sanders’ goal. Let’s assume that all happens well. I don’t know that this gets us to any meaningful regulation of the industry. If the public has a 50% stake, how does the public exercise that stake? What does that mean in terms of how these companies are governed? And doesn’t that make the goal of the government to maximize the profitability of these companies? I don’t see a path here toward constraint, and what I’m looking for is some constraint.

[00:23:56] Sarah: Well, to your first point about it’s going to change every industry, yeah, that’s why it’s different, because it’s going to have its footprint everywhere. That to me is like to the bigness and the innovation and the transformative capacity of it all. I think despite my well-established overall optimism, I think constraint has left the barn. I think that when you have Anthropic coming out with Mythos and saying, “We have built something unlike any of us have ever seen. It improves itself,” you read people’s reporting of using Mythos, and it’s transformative. And then what? Two weeks later, after saying, “It’s so big and powerful, we’re only going to let a couple people use it,” they’re like, “Here you go.” I don’t think constraint is the name of the game. I think the best case scenario is we say we’ve unleashed this thing. It’s going to change everything. At least you’re going to get a cut to help lessen the fallout. Whatever it will be inevitably in your own life, you’re going to get a share of this new future. Because the government was a piece, a part and parcel of so many other transformative in-industries in the past because they were fundamentally a part of the research and the ground building. That’s not the case here. So if we don’t hurry and get a piece of this ground floor, then I’m really worried. I guess there is an example that you can look to as far as the government getting involved and stepping all over it and regulating it and constraining it. But the best example I see is China, and I don’t ever see that version of constraint rolling out in the United States. The level of control you’d have to have over the inner workings of the government to regulate it at this point that we are already at in the process to me, it’s not something I see coming in 2026 or 2028 or 2030

[00:26:21] Beth: I don’t think that we can put the horse back in the barn. I agree with you about that. I do think where government could still step in as a meaningful player is requiring some transparency. Requiring some transparency if you apply to our company and we’re using AI to screen your resumes, it says that in the job posting. If you make a campaign commercial with AI, it says it in the commercial. You have to tell us when these systems are being integrated into things because then I think there can be some kind of market reaction. It is unpopular. This is a wild conversation, right? Because on the one hand, people don’t like this. They don’t want the data centers built in their communities. They don’t want to watch AI slop on their phones. They don’t want their employer forcing them to use AI and feeling like they exist to serve the AI now instead of the AI serving them. There is this massive backlash, and we’re simultaneously saying it’s just inevitable, it’s just going to change everything and there’s nothing we can do about it but take a piece of it. It seems to me that if government cannot keep up with the technology itself, and I think it can’t, and I think it probably shouldn’t be able to. I don’t think we want government to say, “Ooh, there’s an emerging product that I don’t like. Let’s squish it before it gets off the ground.” I don’t think we want that. But now that it’s out here, I think being able to tell us and make it, like just turn all the lights on, is something that government could do. Just put a floodlight on it and then we can push back. We can see what happens. We can still test this against public sentiment.

[00:28:08] Sarah: Well, two things, as I continue to be a Debbie Downer. One, this government? You think this government, this administration? We’re stuck with him till 2028. And so I’m just trying to be realistic about what we’ve got here right now. And even if we get a Democratic Congress in who passes some sort of transparency requirement, I’m skeptical whether he’d sign it. But if he feels like it’s his idea, he will do big crazy things, take 50% of stake in it. He’s already said “Oh, that’s an interesting idea.” I’m just trying to work with what we got because if we wait till he’s gone, it’ll good and truly be too late. And as far as the transparency, the transformative nature of this technology to me, the sort of immediate public facing reality that we’re experiencing is the tip of the iceberg. It’s the very tip of the iceberg. It’s honestly the piece I’m the least worried about. The thing that we’re all heading for is this transformation of entire industries and the job market, and that, if you’re watching AI Slop on Facebook, which some people do-- I know my dad does because he sends them to me all the time-- then at least I don’t care if that’s still going on if you’re getting a cut as entire industries are wiped out. You know what I’m saying? So I don’t trust this administration to even get us there, and that’s not the main thing I’m worried about, I guess is what I would say.

[00:29:41] Beth: Then why would you want the administration to have access to 50% of these companies, this administration? That’s the other thing that confuses me about this. I don’t look at the last 10 years and think, “You know what I want? I want government in more stuff.” That’s just not where I am.

[00:29:55] Sarah: I do. I look at it and say we have stepped away from any attempt to rein in industry, regulate, get a piece. No I get that he’s in charge, but he loves to hand out money. Listen, even if we set this up tomorrow and he gets his greasy little paws on the sovereign wealth fund and wastes it for two years, fine. This shit’s going to make so much money okay, whatever. Then the next person that gets in there can do something better with it.

[00:30:22] Beth: It’s not the money to me, it’s the corruption. More government involvement is an invitation to corruption, period. It’s not that I think, “Oh, I don’t want these companies to be over-regulated.” I’d be delighted for these companies to be over-regulated. I’d be thrilled. The risk to me of having ownership like this is what we see today happening with the collaboration and the closeness of the sort of new oligarchs with this president on steroids. The more he steps in industry by industry, business by business, the more favors he can dole out, the more people whispering in his ear, the more people with access to him to make major military decisions. We saw what happened with Anthropic, right? With Anthropic and the Department of Defense. When these companies dared to say we still think a human should press the button if we’re going to use technology to kill people. If this administration becomes the one that takes a 50% stake in AI or any other, I can’t imagine what the future will be like. Who knows who’ll be in that seat? The opportunities for decisions to be made unethically multiply, and that is where I am most uncomfortable with this proposal

[00:31:50] Sarah: Well, I just feel like that’s a false binary though. There’s already corruption. You still have three dudes making all the calls. To me, this is fun. We’re back into the original Pantsuit Politics framework, which is what are you more concerned with? Are you more concerned with the damage that giant corporations can do, or are you more concerned with the damage that giant federal government can do? With this industry, I’m more concerned with what they can do by themselves.

[00:32:19] Beth: With this proposal, I’m concerned about what a new behemoth that consists of both of those things can do.

[00:32:22] Sarah: I get it. I see that, and I understand it, but at least you have some sort of democratic involvement eventually, even if it’s not under this administ-

[00:32:24] Beth: Do you?

[00:32:26] Sarah: Yeah, even if it’s not him. Yeah, sure, it’s Trump. No, you don’t. Of course, you don’t. No. First of all, we’re not going to get this set up tomorrow, but even if it’s a year of his influence or whatever. And let’s just cross our fingers we get a Democratic Congress who has to actually pass this legislation that’s worth a damn. That’d be fun if we got the Democratic Congress in the midterms, and when we’re passing the sovereign wealth legislation, it actually has some damn teeth to it and doesn’t just hand a blank check to the executive branch. That’d be fun. Even if that’s not true, and he gets his hands in it, it’s not him forever. Then you have a federal government involved somehow because they’re not involved at all now. I would like some sort of democratically involved institution and not just Dario, Sam, and Elon.

[00:33:22] Beth: I just am struggling to picture what that involvement actually looks like. The government is involved in those companies today. It’s an enormous customer of them. What kind of seat at the table would be afforded by a 50% stake in the stock? I don’t know the answer to that.

[00:33:43] Sarah: Well, look at the Anthropic example. Yeah, they pitched a fit, but guess who still has the contracts? Anthropic. So as customers, the power is in pitching a fit for the media? Nothing freaking changed. As far as I can tell from the reporting, I don’t think we know everything yet. It’s not like anybody really moved.

[00:34:03] Beth: That is the market working, right? That is the truth because the Anthropic product is the best product. Anthropic won the competition by making the best product, and so the government as the customer reacts to that. They could still change their minds, but they’re not going to because there’s not a better product right now.

[00:34:21] Sarah: Yeah, but I hate that. I hate that the government is just stuck as a client. That makes me deeply uncomfortable. The government should not just be a client and a piece of the pie of the marketplace.

[00:34:32] Beth: Even when Anthropic is acting more ethically than the government in this scenario?

[00:34:39] Sarah: Yeah, for now. But we have no power to say what they’re going to do moving forward. I don’t trust any real marketplace right now. Look at the conversation we had in the IPO.

[00:34:49] Beth: Agreed. My answer is just not, “Well, let’s just try something new that joins those forces even more, joins these incredibly for powerful forces even more.” Because I don’t see where that gets us to more... I see where that gets us to more democratic sharing of the wealth that could be created, but that’s all I see. That’s as far as it goes for me.

[00:35:09] Sarah: That’s all they’re saying. I don’t think Bernie is saying, “This is the regulatory answer, end of story.” I have not heard that argument from him. I have heard him say “Right now, we want a cut of the wealth, and then maybe we can get to the regulatory part.” I don’t think the 50% ownership is the regulatory answer, for what it’s worth. I think there needs to be much more of that. But I think that it becomes a more interesting question. It becomes more interesting policy examination when the American people have a share. Then you don’t get just sloppy... Some of these state proposals are sloppy, man. They’re just red meat for a populace that’s mad at AI. I don’t want that either. I don’t want that regulatory answer either. So when we’ve got a cut, I wonder how that changes the regulatory examination of what policies really get to the democratic wisdom of the populace concerns without getting populist in a way that’s just squelching the industry.

[00:36:10] Beth: It’s just wild because that is creating a conflict in any other scenario as we think about how you regulate something, who’s independent-minded enough to  regulate something..

[00:36:20] Sarah: But this isn’t every other scenario. This is the government, right? We’re not just a stockholder. This is a totally different beast. So it’s not the sort of regular conflict because it’s not regular. It’s the government holding half of the piece. So, to me, that’s very different.

[00:36:33] Beth: Well, you have poo-poohed the EU, but I do want to take a second and talk about their regulatory framework because I think it’s interesting. I don’t think it’s the answer for us, but I do want people to know about it because I think the way they assess regulation for AI based on risk levels is a useful starting place. So the EU’s framework first says, “What poses an unacceptable level of risk?” So we don’t want AI systems manipulating people into making harmful choices. We have conversations happening about that in court right now, right? When has a system affirmed your choice to shoot yourself or someone else? That’s a risk category. The EU also puts into that category emotion recognition systems at work and in educational institutions, which was really interesting to me because we talked about that in future problem solving this year. What would it look like if at school your face were being scanned constantly for signs that you were in some kind of distress? And then they have different standards for what they consider high-risk uses of AI, and that’s where hiring processes come in, certain medical devices, in judicial systems, in infrastructure management. But they target the level of oversight and the rules and restrictions based on those tiers of risk, and I really like that.

[00:37:52] Sarah: I think this is all very interesting. I also think it is almost in its own category because this is all the way at the other end. They have no artificial industry in the EU to speak of. They don’t have any real successful companies or seat at the table. And so from talking about us having a huge seat at the table and 50% shared, now you’re talking about a regulatory framework where they’re just trying to watch the consequences of other global powerhouse and their industries playing out within their borders. So I get it, but it’s a totally different conversation.

[00:38:30] Beth: Well, and a question that I have is if we go with the vision that you support, does it stay that way? Do you cement these companies as the only players in the global game if the US government has a 50% stake? And is the world better off or worse off if there are more companies in this competition?

[00:38:53] Sarah: Well, you can look at the EU as an example of this. You can look at parts of the United States as an example of this with the car industry. The government gets involved at differing levels depending on whether you’re talking about Germany or Michigan, and it squelches the market. I’ve said it before, I want one of those damn Chinese electric cars. And so I think that’s something to absolutely to consider. If the government’s getting involved in a way that puts its hand on the scale as far as competition, it’s probably why the companies themselves are, like, not setting their hair on fire at the mere idea of this proposal. But it’s like I just kind of feel like, guys, we’re going to have to be up for the challenge. We’re going to have to talk. Okay, well, let’s talk about that. I’m sure there’s a way or at least an idea or a proposal to think through that, to get at that issue. I am excited by Bernie’s proposal because I feel like it’s big enough and innovative enough to meet the moment, and we are going to have that. The old ways we got at railroads or electricity or even the internet, freaking Section 230’s out there still causing problems. Ain’t going to get it done. Not going to get it done.

[00:39:56] Beth: Yeah, I struggle a little bit with characterizing it as innovative because governments taking large pieces of critical industries is an old idea. I’m not sure how this moves the needle for us forward. To your point about the companies not setting their hair on fire, I think they like this as an opening volley so they can come back and go, “Oh, good idea. How about 5% or 4% or 3%?” And what would that mean? Because I think that’s where Trump ends up, right? He’s happy to take a percentage, but he wants it to be a small enough percentage that the oligarchs are still happy with him. And then what? Does that accomplish the goals that you are looking to accomplish through the Sanders proposal or not?

[00:40:39] Sarah: Yeah. I think that’s where the conversation will go next, and it will be interesting to see, particularly in the face of more recent political realities like him saying, “I love inflation” or the price of things going up, if this populous solution in the face of all this opposition will become more appealing to both sides of the aisle.

[00:41:15] Beth: It’s time to talk about things Outside of Politics because we are about halfway through the year and you and I were having a discussion about that. And I said that if I could come up with a characterization of 2026 so far it would be not what I expected or planned for. That’s just how the year’s been going.

[00:41:31] Sarah: Would you like to be reminded of your word of the year?

[00:41:33] Beth: I wouldn’t.

[00:41:34] Sarah: It was swim.

[00:41:37] Beth: Okay. That was a good choice. That was a fine choice. That is what I feel like I’m trying to do.

[00:41:44] Sarah: Okay. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming.

[00:41:47] Beth: Did I create this reality with that word?  I’m thinking about that

[00:41:52] Sarah: You said, “ I have experienced a lot of what I would describe as currents. And I think that’s probably going to continue to be true.”

[00:41:59] Beth: Well, I was right. Good job December Beth.

[00:42:04] Sarah: Okay. Mine is hilarious considering what we just talked about and considering... okay, I could go either way on this. My word was analog. Do you remember?

[00:42:17] Beth: Oh, the universe has such a sense of humor.

[00:42:20] Sarah: It does. Well, okay, so at first I was like that’s hilarious, we just did a show on artificial intelligence. I’m using more and more AI in my life, but in fairness, I also just opened a bookstore with actual books. So I feel like that could also be a real argument for analog. So there we go. I’m still doing it.

[00:42:41] Beth: You’re putting some complexity around it, but it’s--

[00:42:44] Sarah: I have not been using my record player as I’d planned to do. Now, I do listen to the radio in the car, which I feel like counts as analog.

[00:42:51] Beth: Is it satellite radio?

[00:42:52] Sarah: No. I hate satellite radio for the record.

[00:42:55] Beth: Are there any other places where you think, “Okay, this is a distinctly analog choice that I’m making even as my digital use increases”

[00:43:03] Sarah: I feel like it’s a little analog, my summer vacation, that we’re taking a road trip in an RV. Doesn’t that feel analog?

[00:43:10] Beth: Yeah.

[00:43:10] Sarah: Like old school?

[00:43:12] Beth: Yeah, I like that.

[00:43:13] Sarah: Okay. That’s all I got.

[00:43:15] Beth: I’m trying to think of what it would mean to recommit to these words. So I do feel like I am swimming. I also feel like I would like to take a moment where you just float for a second. That might help me swim again. That’s coming in the summer. We’ve planned some break time, and hopefully that’s part of it.

[00:43:33] Sarah: I really feel like I need to do the tech Shabbat. I’ve gotten really good about, as far as stepping away from the tech, I’ve gotten really good. The most successful sort of practice is I brick my phone from-- I had to change the dates because I’m sleeping later in the summer. I brick my phone from 8:00 PM to 8:00 AM, so when I’m laying in bed, I can’t do bullshit on my phone. That’s the most successful thing. I still go black and white, and I still do some other stuff, but I need a more sustained chunk when I’m going analog, a more sustained chunk of time, and that’s really hard. I am becoming more dependent on the tools, but I feel like also I’m not as mad about that. It’s not a distraction. It is a very helpful tool, so much of what I do on my phone now. I’m not scrolling. It really helps me get things done, so I don’t know. It’s tough.

[00:44:26] Beth: It is tough.

[00:44:27] Sarah: It’s hard out here. It’s so hard we forgot our words.

[00:44:31] Beth: It’s really something. Maybe what I need to remember about my word is just a release of control. When you’re swimming, you just go with what the water is. So 2026 can continue to be not what I expected, and I’m sure that will have some beautiful dimensions and some difficult ones, and that’s okay.

[00:44:47] Sarah: Okay. I’ll struggle with that as an Enneagram one, But I’m trying to let you inspire me.

[00:44:53] Beth: We would love to hear from you how your 2026 is going. We started this conversation in the Substack chat, and it has been very fascinating so far, so please continue there. Thank you so much for spending time with us today. We will be back with you next Tuesday with another new episode of Pantsuit Politics. Between now and then, have the best weekend available to you.

Show Credits

Pantsuit Politics is hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers. The show is produced by Studio D Podcast Production.

Our theme music was composed by Xander Singh with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima.

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