DealBook Summit: Alex Karp Defends Palantir’s Work With ICE

Podcast: DealBook Summit | Host: The New York Times (Andrew Ross Sorkin)
Guest: Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir Technologies
Date: December 4, 2025
Recorded: Live at DealBook Summit, NYC, December 3, 2025

Main Theme & Purpose

This episode features a candid, often combative conversation between Palantir CEO Alex Karp and NYT journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin, probing Palantir's controversial government work (notably with ICE), moral responsibility in technology, the CEO’s polarizing political views, and the complexities of defending Western values in a new technological, geopolitical landscape. Karp vigorously defends Palantir’s mission and practices, critiques both elite liberal and conservative narratives, and reflects on the personal philosophy and upbringing that inform his approach to leadership and national service.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Controversy, Palantir’s Core Mission, and Western Power

• Palantir’s Role: Known for “helping governments make sense of complicated data,” especially in intelligence, law enforcement, and military contexts. Business booming with advances in AI.
• Karp on Support for Israel: Palantir is outspoken in support for allies like Israel (clients include the IDF and Mossad). Karp draws a distinction between supporting Israel’s position versus endorsing every Israeli decision.

  “It doesn't actually mean that you support every decision. It means you support them having a superior position to their adversaries.” (02:09)

• Western Values and ‘Organized Violence’:
  • Karp references his book, quoting Huntington: The West’s supremacy isn’t from superior ideas, but from the superior application of organized violence.
  • Karp insists that Western ideals matter, but without the capacity for deterrence and defense, values alone are not enough.

  “No one would listen to the spirit of our ideas if our ability to organize in violence was inferior.” (03:46)

2. University Culture, American Meritocracy, and Cynicism toward ‘Progressivism’

• Critique of Elite Institutions:
  • Says academia and elite circles have shifted from defending foundational American principles to undermining meritocracy and core values.

  “What’s being called progressive is in any way progressive is a complete farce… That was 50 years ago. That's what it means to be a progressive. Growing up, the concern was illegal immigration undermining American workers—not open borders or meritocracy-free systems.” (06:41)

• Skepticism toward Imposing Values:

  “I'm skeptical of imposing values… I don’t think cultural assimilation has worked in the last 50 years and that’s an obvious truth you’re not allowed to say.” (05:23)

• Critique of Modern Progressivism: Claims that handouts and non-meritocratic reforms don’t help the poor, particularly Black Americans in cities.

3. Political Identity, Immigration, & Deterrence

• On Alleged Political Shift: Karp argues that parties have shifted, not him. Outspoken that his core issues are immigration and deterrence, not social ones like abortion or LGBTQ rights.
• Media and Influence:

  “The media at the Washington Post and New York Times doesn’t always like me. That’s great, because about 10 million people do… I’ll use my whole influence to make sure this country stays skeptical on migration and has deterrent capacity that it only uses selectively.” (09:29)

4. Palantir & ICE — Technology, Empathy, and Selectivity

• ICE Collaboration: Sorkin presses Karp on Palantir’s involvement with ICE and harsh immigration enforcement. Does he have misgivings about the human cost?
  • Karp counters with the claim that American empathy is “selective,” typically excluding poor and working-class (especially white males); society cares about certain victims but not about the working class or former inmates.

  “There is selective, instrumental use of empathy that somehow is only applied at the point where it would help…” (11:56)

  • Strongly argues that calls for rule-of-law and precision in enforcement only bolster the case for Palantir’s software.
• Surveillance Allegations and Human Rights: Repeatedly, Karp claims Palantir’s product cannot easily be abused for surveillance because of built-in transparency.

  “Our product is the single hardest product in the world to abuse. …Every single step that you take is absolutely transparent.” (18:52)

• Red Lines: When pressed about potential abuses, Karp notes Palantir has refused contracts with regimes or agencies engaged in racial profiling, surveillance of Muslims, or adversarial nations (Russia, China).

  “We pulled our product from law enforcement institutions that were purely doing profiling … we refused to do it.” (21:41)

5. Press Criticism & Public Dialogue

• Media Frustrations: Karp unloads on the NYT for “technically illiterate” stories, arguing credibility is lost with technical audiences, which ultimately undermines democracy.

  “When you write a technically completely illiterate article, you lose a lot of credibility with people who are technical…” (20:54)

• Call to Speak Up: Urges the audience, especially those who quietly agree, to be more vocal:

  “If you do not speak up, the people who are disagreeing with me or think I'm stupid… you have to speak up. And you cannot blame the far left...when they speak up for their views. Do you speak up for yours?” (32:16)

6. Business, Government, and Risk

• On U.S. Government Investment: Sorkin asks if Palantir would take public money in exchange for equity if pressed by the government.
  • Karp’s view: Bailouts are fundamentally unjust if failing leaders keep bonuses while taxpayers absorb risk. He prides Palantir on absorbing full risk of failure; says the only people who pay full price for failure are the poor.
  • Quote:

    “If you want to make your stupid decisions and then you go to the White House and ask for money, you should absorb the full risk of that… The only people who pay the price for being wrong... are poor people.” (28:35, 31:45)

• Company Mission: Emphasizes that Palantir isn't a "normal" company but values-driven and combative by design.

7. On Trump, Fascism, and Political Identity

• Is Trump a Fascist? Karp, who wrote his college thesis on fascism, dismisses the notion:
  • “Of course not. I think that's stupid, honestly… We have a democratic society, and he won in a landslide. I don't see any sign of him being [a fascist].” (26:47)

8. Authenticity and Leadership Style

• Candid Speech: Sorkin highlights Karp’s unusual outspokenness; Karp admits he doesn’t say everything he thinks, but close (“That would get awesome…” (34:03)).
• Why candor?
  • “When you’re not saying roughly what you think… what the people in the audience actually perceive is you’re lying. …You lose the smartest people inside… they know he’s telling them the truth.” (34:09–35:00)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On selectivity in empathy and coverage:

  “There's a selective, instrumental use of empathy that somehow is only applied at the point where it would help.” — Alex Karp (11:56)

• On American meritocracy and military deterrence:

  “Every single person in the world believes, outside of the faculty of Harvard, and certainly all of our adversaries know to be true, is that no one would listen to the spirit of our ideas if our ability to organize in violence was inferior.” — Alex Karp (03:46)

• On modern progressivism:

  “Being progressive doesn’t mean just, oh, it feels so good to be involved in dysfunction… That’s not progressive, that’s pretend. That’s honestly cowardly.” — Alex Karp (06:41)

• On the price of being wrong:

  “The only people who pay the price for being wrong in this culture, in complete fashion, are poor people. The rest of us somehow outsource all the times we’re wrong and stupid to the whole society.” — Alex Karp (31:45)

• On Palantir’s controversial reputation:

  “I divide the world into Palantir, essentially, and Palantir derangement Syndrome, Palantir skeptics and Palantir haters. My biggest fans started off as Palantir skeptics and Palantir haters. I believe that someday almost everyone in this audience is going to agree with me.” — Alex Karp (12:54)

• On speaking up:

  “The one thing I would say to people in the audience, a lot of you think I’m right… You better speak up... Do you speak up for your views?” — Alex Karp (32:16)

Timestamps for Critical Segments

• Introduction & Palantir’s mission — 01:08–02:50
• Karp on Western power and violence — 02:50–04:33
• University critique & values — 04:33–07:56
• Karp's political evolution, priorities — 07:56–10:44
• Palantir’s work with ICE, empathy & the working class — 10:44–15:47
• Ex-employees' critique & surveillance discussion — 15:47–18:52
• Human rights, red lines, and product choices — 21:20–24:34
• Trump, fascism, political nuance — 26:35–27:56
• Palantir, US government investment, and risk — 28:16–32:13
• On authenticity and leadership — 33:09–36:15
• Personal background: dyslexia & motivation — 36:49–39:17
• Philosophy of helping, agency, American exceptionalism — 40:19–43:50
• Conclusion — 43:50–44:14

Tone Notes

• Karp: Blunt, combative, sometimes caustic, unapologetically intellectual, passionate, occasionally dismissive of both right and left. Emphasizes realism, skepticism of conventional wisdom, and the importance of agency.
• Sorkin: Persistent, probing, respectful but direct, seeking clarification and accountability.

For Listeners New to the Episode

If you want a front-row seat to one of tech’s most polarizing and influential CEOs, speaking with unusual frankness about the intersection of technology, national security, politics, and culture—in a way that challenges both progressive and conservative listeners—this episode delivers. Alex Karp vigorously defends Palantir’s work, including with ICE, critiques the limitations of empathy and the failures of elite discourse, and calls for a renewed focus on meritocracy and American agency in an era of strategic competition and technological upheaval.

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