Alex Karp calls Palantir 'progressive', after years of 'anti-woke' talk

What has Alex Karp said before?

In August 2024 he told Maureen Dowd: "I'm not going to apologize for defending the U.S. government on the border, defending the Special Ops, bringing the people home."

In February 2025, a shareholder letter quoted Samuel Huntington to argue that the West rose not through its ideas or values but through "its superiority in applying organized violence." That same month, an earnings call described Palantir as "making America more lethal" by analysing data for the US military and its allies.

In November 2025 he said on an earnings call that Palantir is "the first company to be completely anti-woke." In another interview that month he said he views Democrats as his party, but added: "if the Mamdani wing of the party takes over? If that's my party, I'm not in it." He also said Democrats "completely neglect males."

In April 2026 came a manifesto, previously published as a book. It argued that the postwar "neutering" of Germany and Japan must be undone, and that "all cultures are now equal. Criticism and value judgments are forbidden." In July, on CNBC, he said of frontier AI models: "This is the voice of American business that is being channeled through me."

What does Palantir actually do?

The company sells data-analysis software to governments and the military. Palantir's own pitch, as Karp put it on an earnings call, is helping US forces and allies anticipate enemy moves and locate their coordinates.

Whether the "progressive" label sticks is up to readers. The quotes above are all on the record, and they are the yardstick Karp's new description will be measured against.