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May 03, 2025
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."
He describes himself as a "progressive warrior" whose support of Democrats over the years, including Kamala Harris for president, has been in contrast to Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel, a billionaire who's one of President Trump's longtime backers. Where Karp and Thiel merge is around a shared devotion for developing data-analyzing intelligence tools to, as Karp has put it, "power the West to its obvious, innate superiority."
Now in Trump's second term, Palantir is emerging as a key private contractor as the administration intensifies its crackdown on people who are in the U.S. without legal status.
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.
Palantir's new work with the Trump administration follows two decades of gaining ever-larger government contracts. In November, Palantir secured a nearly $1 billion software contract with the Navy. Since Trump took office, Palantir's has been eyeing even more government work, and the company's stock has surged more than 200% from the day before Trump was elected.
"Having political connections and inroads with Peter Thiel and Elon Musk certainly helps them," said Michael McGrath, the former chief executive of i2, a data analytics firm that competes with Palantir. "It makes deals come faster without a lot of negotiation and pressure."
Juan Sebastián Pinto, a former Palantir employee, said in an interview with NPR that the company has built its brand on a single premise that has enabled it to deflect criticism.
"What I really was doing is basically helping a company create a monopoly over artificial intelligence decision-making and do so first by targeting the federal government," he said, noting that the federal government was an easy target for business, since its software capabilities lag far behind Palantir's.
The risks, Pinto said, deserve more debate and scrutiny — which is why he said it is critical as a former employee to shed light on the societal implications of Palantir's services.
"I simply cannot live in a world where my grandchildren have to be processed through a database where their everyday activities, including social media posts, as citizens, are tracked, collected and used for an authoritarian government's policing database," he said. "I don't want to live in that world, and I think it's worth risking my career, and even my personal safety, to speak out about this."
Full article here:
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."
He describes himself as a "progressive warrior" whose support of Democrats over the years, including Kamala Harris for president, has been in contrast to Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel, a billionaire who's one of President Trump's longtime backers. Where Karp and Thiel merge is around a shared devotion for developing data-analyzing intelligence tools to, as Karp has put it, "power the West to its obvious, innate superiority."
Now in Trump's second term, Palantir is emerging as a key private contractor as the administration intensifies its crackdown on people who are in the U.S. without legal status.
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.
Palantir's new work with the Trump administration follows two decades of gaining ever-larger government contracts. In November, Palantir secured a nearly $1 billion software contract with the Navy. Since Trump took office, Palantir's has been eyeing even more government work, and the company's stock has surged more than 200% from the day before Trump was elected.
"Having political connections and inroads with Peter Thiel and Elon Musk certainly helps them," said Michael McGrath, the former chief executive of i2, a data analytics firm that competes with Palantir. "It makes deals come faster without a lot of negotiation and pressure."
Former Palantir employee speaks out against Trump administration work
Juan Sebastián Pinto, a former Palantir employee, said in an interview with NPR that the company has built its brand on a single premise that has enabled it to deflect criticism.
"What I really was doing is basically helping a company create a monopoly over artificial intelligence decision-making and do so first by targeting the federal government," he said, noting that the federal government was an easy target for business, since its software capabilities lag far behind Palantir's.
The risks, Pinto said, deserve more debate and scrutiny — which is why he said it is critical as a former employee to shed light on the societal implications of Palantir's services.
"I simply cannot live in a world where my grandchildren have to be processed through a database where their everyday activities, including social media posts, as citizens, are tracked, collected and used for an authoritarian government's policing database," he said. "I don't want to live in that world, and I think it's worth risking my career, and even my personal safety, to speak out about this."
Full article here:
