Palantir CEO Alex Karp is tired of his critics. This is very clear. But during the Yahoo Finance Invest conference on Thursday, Trump stepped up his counterattack, directly targeting analysts, journalists and political commentators who have long attacked the company as a symbol of a creeping surveillance state, or as overvalued.
Karp’s message: They were wrong then, they’re wrong now, and they cost Americans real money every day.
“How many times have you been right in the past?” Karp said when asked why some analysts still insist that Palantir’s valuation is too high.
He said he believes negative comments from traditional finance people — and their “followers,” analysts — have repeatedly failed to understand how the company operates, and failed to understand what Palantir’s retail base experienced years ago.
“Do you know how much money you stole from people who had your opinions about Palantir?” he asked these analysts, arguing that those who priced the stock a sell at $6, $12 or $20 drove ordinary Americans out of one of tech’s biggest winners, while institutions sat on the sidelines.
“By my estimation, Palantir is one of the only companies that the average American buys — and the average sophisticated American sells,” Karp continued in a skeptical tone.
This kind of populist inversion lies at the heart of Karp’s broader argument: the people who call Palantir a tool for surveillance – his word for them is “parasitic” – neither understand the product nor the country that enabled it.
“Should the enterprise be parasitic? Should the host pay to make your company bigger without getting any actual value?” he asked, drawing a line between Palantir’s pitch and what he said he considers “mindfulness virus” versions of enterprise software that generate fees without changing the results.
Instead, Karp insists that Palantir’s software is designed for the welder, truck driver, plant technician, and soldier — not the probation bureaucrat.
He describes the company’s work as enabling “AI that actually works”: systems that improve routing for truck drivers, upgrade the capabilities of welders, help factory workers manage complex tasks, and give fighters technology so advanced “our enemies don’t want to fight with us.”
He says this is the opposite of a surveillance network. It is a national security asset, part of the deeper American story. This is what Palantir’s heavy retail investor base understands: the country’s constitutional and technological order is uniquely powerful, and defending it is not only morally right, it is financially rewarding.
“Not only was patriotism correct, but patriotism will make you rich,” he said, considering that Silicon Valley only listens to ideas when they make money. In his view, Palantir’s success is proof that the combination of US military power and technological dominance — “the chips of existence, above and below” — remains unparalleled around the world.
He believes that this is where the critics are wrong. While critics warn that Palantir is fueling the surveillance state, Karp says the company is there for that It is forbidden Abuse of power – by making the United States so technologically dominant that it rarely needs to show force.
He said: “Our project is to make America so strong that we never fight.” “This is completely different from being strong enough, so you are always fighting.”
Karp Enjoys the Reversal: ‘Broken Car’ vs. ‘Beautiful Tesla’
Karp bitterly compared the fortunes of analysts who doubted the company with retail investors who stuck with it.
“Nothing makes me happier than imagining ‘the bank CEO… driving around in his broken-down car,’” he said, watching a truck driver or welder — “someone who didn’t go to an elite school” — driving a “beautiful Tesla” paid for with Palantir’s earnings.
This wasn’t even a metaphor. Karp said he regularly meets ordinary workers who are “now rich because of Palantir” — and people who bet against the company have become a kind of meme themselves.
Critics — especially civil liberties groups — have accused Palantir for years of building analytical tools that enable government surveillance. Karp says these attacks are based on caricatures, not facts.
“Pure ideas do not change the world,” he said. “Pure ideas backed by military power and economic power do that.”
The post Palantir CEO slams ‘parasitic’ critics calling the tech a surveillance tool: ‘Not only is patriotism right, patriotism will make you rich’ first appeared on Investorempires.com.
