Presidential Office on Kim Yongbeom's National Dividend Proposal: "Personal Opinion Unrelated to Internal Discussion"

On May 12, the Presidential Office stated that policy chief Kim Yongbeom's proposal regarding a "national dividend" in the era of artificial intelligence (AI) was "a personal opinion unrelated to any internal discussion or review within the Presidential Office."

Previously, on the day before, Kim had posted on Facebook, "The benefits of the AI infrastructure era are not the result of just a few companies, but stem from an industrial foundation built by the entire nation over the past half-century." He added, "A portion of these benefits should be structurally returned to all citizens," and went on to propose the so-called "national dividend" scheme.

In relation to this, Bloomberg reported that Kim's remarks triggered a selling trend among foreign investors, causing the KOSPI index to drop by 179.09 points (2.29%) compared to the previous trading day.