Sanders Targets OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI With 50% Tax
Senator Bernie Sanders proposes seizing 50% of OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI stock to fund a federal sovereign wealth fund with government board seats.
Daniel Okafor
AI Industry & Policy Reporter
Daniel is a tech reporter who covers the business side of artificial intelligence - funding rounds, corporate strategy, regulatory battles, and the power dynamics between the labs racing to build frontier models. Before joining Awesome Agents, he spent four years at Reuters covering the intersection of technology and finance, with a particular focus on how venture capital shapes the AI industry.
He holds a degree in Economics from the London School of Economics and a postgraduate diploma in Journalism from City, University of London. His economics training shows in his reporting: he follows the money, reads the filings, and is skeptical of growth narratives that do not come with numbers attached.
At Awesome Agents, Daniel covers AI industry news with an emphasis on deals, policy, competition, and market dynamics. He is especially interested in the geopolitics of AI - export controls, chip restrictions, and the US-China-EU regulatory landscape. His reporting tends to focus on who benefits, who pays, and what the incentives actually are.
Based in London, UK.
Articles by Daniel Okafor
Trump Eyes Government Equity Stake in OpenAI
The Trump administration is in talks with OpenAI about donating equity to a US sovereign-style fund, a deal that would make American taxpayers co-owners of the most valuable AI startup on Earth.
OpenAI Dreaming V3 Starts the AI Memory Wars
OpenAI's Dreaming V3 replaces ChatGPT's flat memory with a hierarchical relational system, kicking off a four-way race for AI personalization dominance.
Meta Deploys Tent Data Centers to Halve AI Build Time
Meta is building tent-style rapid deployment structures at its Ohio Prometheus facility, cutting construction timelines roughly in half and bypassing grid delays with off-grid gas power.
Florida Sues OpenAI and Altman Over ChatGPT Safety Lapses
Florida becomes the first US state to hold an AI CEO personally liable, filing an 83-page complaint accusing OpenAI and Sam Altman of hiding ChatGPT's dangers while racing for market share.
Lovable Signs Google Cloud Deal to 5x Its Infrastructure
Lovable's multiyear Google Cloud pact quintuples its compute footprint and bundles access to both Claude and Gemini - a bet that enterprise credibility is the next growth act.
DeepSeek Nears $7.4B Close With Tencent and CATL
DeepSeek's maiden external funding round is nearing completion at up to $59B valuation, with Tencent and EV battery giant CATL as the biggest outside investors.
UK Forces Google to Give Publishers AI Search Opt-Out
The UK's CMA issued a world-first binding order requiring Google to let publishers opt out of AI Overviews, AI Mode, and AI model training, with nine months to comply.
Trump Signs Voluntary AI Review Order After Pushback
Trump signed a narrowed AI executive order giving the government 30 days of voluntary pre-release access to frontier models, after industry lobbying gutted the original 90-day mandatory proposal.
Anthropic Files for IPO, Eyes $1 Trillion Debut
Anthropic confidentially filed its S-1 with the SEC on June 1, targeting an October 2026 IPO at a near-$1 trillion valuation after a 5x revenue surge in six months.
BadHost: The Auth Bypass Lurking in 325M AI Systems
CVE-2026-48710 in Starlette lets a single malformed HTTP header bypass authentication on vLLM, LiteLLM, FastAPI, and every MCP server in production.
ByteDance Plans $70B AI Capex, Tripling Last Year
ByteDance is weighing up to $70 billion in AI capital expenditure for 2026, nearly tripling its 2025 spend, while locking in offshore compute and a Qualcomm chip deal to sidestep US export controls as Doubao hits 345 million users.
