When Palantir chief govt Alex Karp sat down with Politico this week, he reportedly used the phrase “progressive” eight occasions to explain each his political philosophy and his firm.
“I’ve been a Democrat my entire life,” Karp advised Politico, which famous that he known as the Democratic Celebration “completely irresponsible” within the distant time of October 2025. “I do know extra about being a progressive than virtually anyone on the planet, and I completely consider Palantir—all of our merchandise are primarily progressive.”
This isn’t the primary time Karp has known as himself a progressive. In 2018, The New York Instances reported that Karp described himself as such. In the identical article, he claimed to have voted for Hillary Clinton.
Karp has additionally donated cash to Democratic candidates. In 2023, for example, he donated $360,000 to a joint fundraising committee for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. The following yr, he donated $1 million to MAGA, Inc.
Palantir has a share of supporters from the Democratic celebration. Nonetheless, it’s not essentially clear how the merchandise of Palantir—an organization that constructed the know-how that underpins a lot of the Trump administration’s brutal arrest and deportation marketing campaign, bought instruments to the US army that may use generative AI to assist plan and execute drone strikes, and partnered with the Israeli army to help in its devastating battle on the Gaza strip, amongst different issues—might fairly be seen as progressive.
It’s instructive, then, to have a look at what else Karp has stated in current weeks, and the way it traces up together with his thought of what’s “progressive.”
In his most up-to-date quarterly letter to Palantir shareholders, Karp really doubled down on his primary premise. In it, he argued that Palantir staff are “the pioneers of a real and viable antiwar motion.”
“We’re all, in no unsure phrases, residing by what John Lewis Gaddis, the professor of naval and army historical past at Yale, presciently described many years in the past as the lengthy peace,” Karp wrote, even supposing the US and Iran are at present engaged in direct warfare.
Throughout Palantir’s corresponding earnings name on November 2, Karp was requested to make clear the statements in his letter.
“Our merchandise are constructed to keep away from battle, that means the adversary is aware of that they may have such ache inflicted upon them that in reality it isn’t price going to battle,” Karp stated. He didn’t, nevertheless, deal with the related risk that the US is the celebration that initiates battle.
