Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) escalated his criticism of the artificial intelligence boom on Tuesday, warning on the Senate floor that what he called “The Big Tech Oligarchs” want an AI revolution that enriches a handful of billionaires and not the broader working class.
Sanders Names Tech Titans Driving AI
In a post on X, the Vermont independent wrote, “Who is pushing AI? Musk. Bezos. Zuckerberg. Ellison. What they want is not what working families need,” and embedded his full floor speech.
In the speech, Sanders repeatedly named Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Larry Ellison as the forces driving the current AI and robotics push, arguing they are investing “hundreds of billions of dollars” not to solve economic hardship but to expand their own wealth and power.
He pointed to Musk’s warning that AI and robots could replace all jobs, cited reports that Bezos wants to raise $100 billion to automate factories, and invoked Ellison’s vision of constant AI surveillance, saying Congress was failing to confront the consequences.
Bezos Attack Broadens Into Policy Fight
The comments came a day after Sanders targeted Bezos directly over reports that the Amazon founder was seeking $100 billion to replace workers with robots globally. Sanders wrote then that, “The oligarchs want it all. Not going to happen. Stand up and FIGHT BACK.”
Sanders has paired that rhetoric with a policy agenda. In a Senate HELP Committee minority staff report made public in October 2025, he backed a 32-hour workweek with no loss in pay, argued for banning stock buybacks, and said AI-driven gains should flow to workers rather than executives and shareholders.
He has separately called for a moratorium on new AI data centers, warning that the facilities threaten jobs, democracy and public resources, while also pressing broader tax-the-rich measures to curb billionaire power.
Speech Expands Warning Beyond Lost Jobs
Other parts of Tuesday’s speech widened the argument. Sanders said AI could replace nearly 100 million U.S. jobs over a decade, intensify deepfake-driven political misinformation, worsen children’s mental health, strain power grids through giant data centers and, in the worst case, pose an existential risk if superintelligent systems escape human control. Whether Congress acts, he suggested, is the real test.
Photo Courtesy: Sheila Fitzgerald on Shutterstock.com
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