Alex Karp, the creepy CEO of creepy defense contractor Palantir, just can’t stop talking about killing people. During a recent call with investors, the billionaire let it slip that he doesn’t mind a little bloodshed, just so long as the money keeps pouring in.
“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 enemies and on occasion kill them,” Karp said, with a smile on his face. The CEO added that he was very proud of the work his firm is doing and that he felt it was good for America. “I’m very happy to have you along for the journey,” he said. “We are crushing it. We are dedicating our company to the service of the West, and the United States of America, and we’re super-proud of the role we play, especially in places we can’t talk about.”
Mother Jones reports that Trump’s re-election and subsequent inaction of police-state style policies have been mighty good for Palantir’s stock— which makes sense since Palantir is a police-state kind of company.
During the same call, Karp mentioned killing people once again when the conversation turned to the fiasco currently unfolding in the U.S. government (said fiasco involves Karp’s fellow billionaire Elon Musk using his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to dismantle federal agencies, purge the civil service workforce, and generally destroy the functioning of American bureaucracy). “We love disruption, and whatever’s good for America will be good for Americans and very good for Palantir,” Karp said, apparently excited about Musk’s effort. “Disruption, at the end of the day, exposes things that aren’t working,” he continued. “There will be ups and downs. There’s a revolution. Some people are going to get their heads cut off. We’re expecting to see really unexpected things and to win.”
Palantir $PLTR CEO Alex Karp just said this to retail shareholders pic.twitter.com/QEFcSTSgVq
— Evan (@StockMKTNewz) February 3, 2025
The tech industry’s love of the buzzword “disruption” is humorous and confounding. After all, not all disruption is good disruption. It would be “disruptive” to Karp’s day if, for instance, he was attacked by a grizzly bear, or tripped down his staircase, or got food poisoning, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it would be a good use of his time or beneficial to his overall well-being. Similarly, “disrupting” our nation’s government and allowing people’s heads to be cut off (if only metaphorically) may not actually be good for America.
It’s weird that Karp is so supportive of publicly flogging the U.S. government, since Palantir, itself, was originally seeded with money from that government, and continues to make most of its money from it. Of course, Karp is so rich now it’s possible he just doesn’t see the connection between a functioning bureaucracy and his own well-being. Bloomberg’s billionaire index claims he is worth some $9 billion. With that kind of money, you can afford to kick back and presume that everything’s going to turn out all right in the end.
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2025-02-07 13:50:47
