According to Palantir CEO Alex Karp, several employees have left the company owing to his public support for Israel. He expects to see more people walk out the door.
“We have lost employees. “I am sure we will lose employees,” Karp stated in an interview with CNBC’s “Money Movers” on Wednesday. “If you have a position that does not cost you ever to lose an employee, it’s not a position.”
Karp was replying to host Sara Eisen’s inquiry on the company’s personnel turnover as a result of its unpopular stances.
Palantir, which is well-known for its government contract work in defense and intelligence, has provided technology to support the Ukrainian and Israeli militaries in their separate wars. Israel has sworn to defeat Hamas following the Palestinian militant group’s Oct. 7 onslaught in southern Israel, which killed almost 1,200. More than 30,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza since the conflict began, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.
Karp stated on Palantir’s earnings call last month that he was “extremely proud that after October 7, within weeks, we are on the ground and engaged in operationally critical operations in Israel.”
Palantir held its first board meeting of the year in Tel Aviv, Israel, in January, after which the business announced a “strategic partnership” with the Israeli Ministry of Defense to provide technology for the country’s military operations. Karp emphasized the company’s support for the US government and Israel on an earnings call in November, stating that “Palantir only supplies its products to Western allies.”
Karp reaffirmed his support for Israel during the interview on Wednesday. Eisen cited the company’s October decision to run a full-page ad in The New York Times, claiming it “stands with Israel.”
“We have a precedent in this culture where people are supposed to speak up,” Karp said about Palantir’s operations. He stated that in his dealings with his employees, he does not guarantee to “tell you something you want to hear.”
“We’re going to get as close to telling you how we see the world as we’re legally and ethically allowed to,” he told the audience. “We also do this externally.”
Palantir received a $178.4 million contract from the United States Army this week to create ten artificial intelligence-powered ground stations as part of the Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node, or TITAN, project.
“From my perspective, it’s not just about Israel,” Karp told CNBC. He co-founded Palantir with conservative venture capitalists Peter Thiel and Joe Lonsdale. “It’s like: ‘Do you believe in the West? “Do you believe the West has created a superior way of life?”
Long before the current situation in Israel and Gaza, Karp has been outspoken on contentious social and political topics, attempting to draw a clear distinction between his beliefs and those held by the majority of San Francisco and Silicon Valley residents.
Palantir’s headquarters moved from Palo Alto, California to Denver in 2020. A year ago, Karp told CNBC that the technology sector had broken its social compact with America, and he chastised tech businesses that refused to collaborate with the federal government to keep the country safe.
“That is a loser position,” Karp stated in a 2019 interview with “Squawk Box” from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “It is unintelligible. It is not understandable to the typical individual. It is intellectually unsustainable. And I’m really glad we’re not on that side of the debate.”
More than 30,000 Palestinians have been murdered in Gaza since the war began, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.
