Oh fuck. How Palantir, the secretive tech company, is rising in the Trump era
How Palantir, the secretive tech company, is rising in the Trump era
https://www.npr.org/2025/05/01/nx-s1-5372776/palantir-tech-contracts-trump
"Palantir is here to disrupt and make the institutions we partner with the very best in the world, and when it's necessary to scare our enemies and, on occasion, kill them," Karp said on the investor call.
Promoting how the company's products assist in killing is an unusual corporate pitch, but it is indicative of Karp's brash and bombastic style. He once said he would love to spray his critics with "light fentanyl-laced urine."
The tousle-haired 57-year-old billionaire holds a doctorate in neoclassical social theory, and when he is not philosophizing about Palantir, he can be found Nordic skiing or practicing tai chi (he keeps a wooden tai chi sword in his office).
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From Gaza to Trump's immigration crackdown
While the company is famously secretive, it does, at times, lift the veil on its technology.
Palantir's AI software is used by the Israel Defense Forces to strike targets in Gaza; it's used to assist the Defense Department in analyzing drone footage; and the Los Angeles Police Department relied on Palantir's "predictive policing" tools to forecast crime patterns.
"We are not a commodity. We do not want our customers to be commodities — we want them to be individual titans that are dominating their industry or the battlefield," Karp said in a November earnings call.
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With Palantir's profile rising, its critics are getting louder.
Following news of the company providing the Trump administration with help in immigration enforcement and deportations, prominent Silicon Valley investor Paul Graham accused Palantir of "building the infrastructure of the police state," asking a Palantir executive on X to commit to not building products that could be used to help the U.S. government violate citizens' constitutional rights.
Palantir's global head of commercial, Ted Mabrey, responded that the company has "made this promise so many ways from Sunday" and that Palantir employees "believe they are making the world a better place every single day."
In an email exchange with NPR, Graham said he remains frustrated with Palantir's response.
"Palantir may try to act huffy and respond that it's unthinkable that the U.S. government would do this. But with this administration it's obviously thinkable," Graham wrote to NPR. "This is the kind of administration where we may well need Stanislav Petrovs," he said, referring to the Soviet lieutenant colonel who is credited with helping to avert a nuclear war. "We need to know if companies like Palantir are prepared to do that."
Palantir declined to comment for this story. The White House did not return a request for comment.
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What a sweet little detail...