JB Pritzker on the Fight Over AI, Housing, and Taxes

JB Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, sat down for a conversation about the state-level fights over AI, housing, taxes, and the future of work. He walked through the logic behind a new social media fee on platforms, a tax on prediction markets, and the failure of his ambitious housing plan. He also defended Illinois as a place that is gaining population again and making long-term bets on quantum computing, even as the state grapples with the unpopularity of massive AI data centers.

The Social Media Fee and Prediction Market Tax

Illinois’s newly approved state budget includes two unusual revenue measures. The first is a fee on social media platforms of 50 cents per user per month. Pritzker was careful to clarify that this is not a tax on users. It is a fee levied directly on the platforms themselves. The rationale is that social media companies are profiting from Illinois residents while imposing costs on the state—specifically, the degradation of children’s mental health and the broader education system. The fee is projected to raise about $200 million, which Pritzker described as “not enough” to cover the state’s mental health needs but a start toward making the platforms pay what he called “their fair share.” The state also passed a child social media safety act that gives parents the ability to control minors’ device access and limit hours on social media.