Wildberger wants tax on German AI revenue as Fratzscher calls for state control of AI firms

A tax on AI revenue

Federal Digital Minister Karsten Wildberger (CDU) has argued for taxing revenue from artificial intelligence in Germany, with the money used to pay for reshaping the labour market. He made the case to Tagesspiegel in an interview published on Tuesday, 13 October. He added that when growth and value creation arise in Germany, taxes must also be paid here.

We have to tax the extremely high revenue from this technology, and with the money we can finance the restructuring, that is also my approach.

Wildberger expects AI to change work fundamentally. In the long run he sees more employment, though in different jobs from today. Retraining and new roles, for example in skilled trades or care work, would need funding, and he said that requires growth and openness to "other instruments".

Gates's robot tax idea and job cuts

Wildberger's proposal responds to a suggestion by Microsoft founder Bill Gates to tax robots and AI. Gates wants to reduce the incentive to replace people with machines and fears that AI could cause massive job losses. Wildberger left open whether he would keep a digital tax if US President Donald Trump threatens tariffs, saying only that the world needs a fair global system. He said his more pressing concern is how Germany itself generates growth and value creation in AI.

Several companies have announced job cuts linked to greater use of AI. The British bank Standard Chartered plans to cut around 7,000 jobs, while Meta and Amazon are also reducing staff on a large scale. An Ifo Institute survey from Munich found that just under 20 percent of firms using AI consider it easy or very easy to replace university graduates with less qualified staff who can work with AI. More than half of the surveyed firms do not share that view.

Fratzscher calls for state ownership of AI firms

Marcel Fratzscher, president of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), says it is central that the state becomes owner of all AI frontier companies and infrastructure. He made the demand in an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung, and he wants the state to hold majority control of leading AI firms. He argues that politics is not taking AI dangers seriously and that the security debate should be the top political issue in Europe and Germany.

I consider AI the potentially greatest threat to our existence and a greater threat than nuclear weapons ever were.

Fratzscher traces the risk to a race for ever more capable models, which he says leads to a loss of control. He argues that the state is liable anyway for risks that no private company can bear, so it must also exercise full control. He rejects the approach put forward by Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, which combines more competition, redistribution of profits and stronger regulation, and calls it a "completely wrong recipe".

For Fratzscher, the problem is too much competition and private ownership, because companies maximise profits and collect huge sums of capital while the risks are socialised. He says industry self-regulation does not work. Asked whether a state-owned company could still compete internationally, he said society as owner would have better chances of enforcing its interests. He also called for global rules and an international regulatory authority.