Anthropic, preparing for an initial public offering reportedly valued between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion, has pledged 5 percent of its shares to a Public Benefit Fund, with an additional 2 percent for every 50 percent increase in company value. Combined with earlier commitments, roughly a fifth of the company would be earmarked for public benefit. Elon Musk countered with a plan to give shares directly to the public, vowing to distribute one SpaceX share to every American child next year.
While Musk's idea is bold, a more practical approach already exists: Social Security. The program insures nearly every worker against lost earnings and pays them directly, but it is barred by law from holding equities, limited to federal debt. A proposal gaining traction in policy circles is to create an independent fund that accepts contributed equity from any company, holds it in a diversified portfolio, and dedicates the returns to the trust funds.
This model is not new. Canada's pension plan, Norway's oil fund, Alaska's Permanent Fund, and state pension systems all own equity on the public's behalf. To avoid political interference, the fund's governance should be deliberately mundane—no government board seats, no political direction, and a published schedule for selling stocks into a broad index.
Anthropic and Musk are not alone in wanting the public to share in AI's gains. OpenAI's April policy paper proposed a public wealth fund investing in AI companies, and the Financial Times reported in July that Sam Altman offered 5 percent of the company's equity to seed a sovereign wealth fund. Politicians from both parties, including President Trump and Senator Bernie Sanders, have called for public investment funds.
None of these proposals has produced a working fund, but Social Security is already operational. It covers nearly every American worker and ended last year with $2.6 trillion in reserves, all in special-issue Treasuries. However, the program is underfunded: the Trustees project the retirement trust fund will run out in late 2032, requiring a 22 percent benefit cut.
To be clear, AI equity pledges alone won't solve the problem. Anthropic's 5 percent is worth $75 billion to $100 billion, and OpenAI's offer about $60 billion, while the program's 75-year shortfall is $29 trillion in present value. But equities belong in Social Security's portfolio, as in any retirement account. A diversified fund earning 2.5 to 3 points a year over Treasuries, with returns reinvested, could turn every $100 billion contributed today into $600 billion to nearly $900 billion in present value over the Trustees' window.
Senators Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Tim Kaine (D-Va.) have proposed borrowing $1.5 trillion to seed a Social Security investment fund. While their aim of higher returns is sound, borrowing creates financing risks. The debt comes due regardless of market performance, and new borrowing would add to a growing federal debt just as long-term Treasury yields have hit their highest level since 2002.
Contributing the money instead eliminates those risks. The same sum could close a third to nearly half the gap, reducing the need for tax increases or benefit cuts. AI shares should be the catalyst for larger funding sources, starting with existing federal assets. The Treasury holds a senior stake in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, estimated by J.P. Morgan to reach roughly $400 billion by year-end, plus warrants for nearly 80 percent of their common shares. The government's 261 million ounces of gold are worth about $1.1 trillion at recent prices and earn no yield. Together, that's about $1.5 trillion—the same amount Cassidy and Kaine want to borrow—before counting a single AI share or warrant.
Washington already allows donated corporate stock in a federal program. Last year, Congress created Trump Accounts for children, and the Treasury now permits companies and charities to donate public stock into them. If a child's account can hold donated stock, so should the program that pays 71 million Americans today and nearly all the rest when they retire.
The companies' offers can be made conditional on Congress acting, a long-standing tactic in American philanthropy. Andrew Carnegie paid for nearly 1,700 public library buildings, but only in towns that supplied the land and committed public money to run them. Here, it would give Congress something to say yes to: neither a tax increase nor a benefit cut.
Anthropic says it will share more about its fund's governance in the coming months. The company can commit now to contributing if Congress builds the vehicle. Congress can build it as part of any solvency deal, or on its own. Social Security was the institutional answer to a great economic dislocation. The companies most confident that another is coming have begun, voluntarily, to put equity on the table. The public should have an account to receive it. The first companies to contribute will have done for this century what Carnegie did for the public library.
