Palantir co-founder and CEO; named in reporting on Palantir's role in Israeli military AI targeting; in 2025 answered a protester who said its technology kills Palestinians with "Mostly terrorists".
Palantir CEO · Person
Alex Karp, co-founder and, since 2005, CEO of Palantir, sells the software of killing and deportation. "Palantir is here to disrupt ... and, when it's necessary, to scare enemies and on occasion kill them," he told investors in February 2025. In January 2024, with Gaza being pulverised, Karp and Peter Thiel flew to Tel Aviv, held Palantir's board meeting there 'in solidarity with Israel' and sealed a strategic partnership with Israel's Ministry of Defense to 'harness Palantir's advanced technology in support of war-related missions.' "I am proud that we are supporting Israel in every way we can," he said. Confronted in April 2025 with the charge that Palantir kills Palestinians, he answered: "mostly terrorists, that's true." Francesca Albanese's July 2025 UN report cites that answer as indicative of "executive-level knowledge and purpose vis-à-vis the unlawful use of force by Israel." A 2025 biography says Palantir's technology was deployed by Israel in Lebanon in 2024, including the pager attacks. At home, Palantir builds ICE's hunting tools: ImmigrationOS ($30M, 2025) and ELITE, which maps deportation targets using addresses drawn from Medicaid data. Palantir's Maven Smart System, built under a $1.3B Pentagon contract, was used for US targeting in Israel's war on Iran; Pentagon investigators found overreliance on Maven contributed to the Minab school strike that killed at least 123 children. He gave $1M to MAGA Inc in December 2024. Palantir's 2026 proxy reports his 2025 pay at $8.62M, up from $4.36M in 2024; he sold more than $2B of stock in 2024, and Forbes puts his fortune at $20.2B (5 Oct 2026).
Palantir has been inside US immigration enforcement since 2013, supplying ICE with FALCON, a mobile app used during immigration raids, and Investigative Case Management (ICM). ICE renewed ICM in 2019 for $49.9M over three years; in 2022 DHS awarded a five-year ICM contract of $95.9M, which Forbes reports at $139.3M. AFSC counts $435M in ICE contracts to Palantir between 2011 and June 2026, and quotes an ICE official saying Palantir raised the agency's rate of successfully locating a target from around 27 percent to just under 80 percent.
In April 2025, as the Trump administration's mass-deportation drive began, ICE paid Palantir $30M to build ImmigrationOS, a platform to 'pull together vast amounts of data, detect patterns, and flag individuals who meet certain criteria', including tracking of so-called self-deportation. Palantir also built ELITE, which EFF describes as a map of 'potential deportation targets' with a dossier on each person and a 'confidence score' on their address, fed with addresses from the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes Medicaid. An ICE officer testified in an Oregon class action that ELITE identified arrest locations while his team worked to a verbal quota of eight arrests per day.
This is the machinery of the deadliest year in ICE detention since 2004: at least 30 people died in ICE custody in 2025. In January 2026 federal agents killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis; after Pretti's killing Palantir staff wrote on internal Slack that 'ICE are the bad guys.' Karp's answer, on CNBC on 2 February 2026: 'If you are critical of ICE, you should be out there protesting for more Palantir.' Stephen Miller, the architect of the deportation policy, holds $100,000 to $250,000 of Palantir stock.
Karp has defended this work for years. In 2020 he called finding undocumented people 'a de minimis part of our work'; in December 2025 he promised to use his 'whole influence' to keep the country 'skeptical on migration' with 'a deterrent capacity'.
Sources: americanimmigrationcouncil.org, govtech.com, executivebiz.com, forbes.com, AFSC Investigate, Immigration Policy Tracking Project (citing Wired), eff.org, inkl.com, kjzz.org, futurism.com, techbuzz.ai, motherjones.com, vice.com, gizmodo.com
In January 2024, three months into the Gaza genocide and ethnic cleansing, Karp and Thiel held Palantir's board meeting in Tel Aviv and agreed with Israel's Ministry of Defense to 'harness Palantir's advanced technology in support of war-related missions.' Middle East Eye reported in July 2024 that Palantir's capabilities include supplying Israel's military and intelligence agencies with data 'to fire missiles at specific targets in Gaza - be it inside homes or in moving vehicles.' Al Jazeera reported in August 2026 that Palantir's software helps 'generate military targeting lists for Israeli forces.'
The UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory found 'reasonable grounds to believe' Palantir provided Israel with predictive policing technology, military software infrastructure and its Artificial Intelligence Platform for 'automated decision-making', and treated Karp's 'mostly terrorists' answer as evidence of 'executive-level knowledge and purpose' regarding Israel's unlawful use of force. Palantir denies involvement in Israel's Lavender and Gospel targeting systems but says it is 'proud to support' Israeli military missions 'in other programs and contexts.'
Michael Steinberger's 2025 biography of Karp reports that Palantir technology was deployed by Israel in Lebanon in 2024, including the pager and walkie-talkie attacks, which killed dozens and wounded thousands, and that its software was used in Israeli raids in Gaza.
In Israel's war on Iran, Palantir's Maven Smart System, whose Pentagon contract ceiling was raised to nearly $1.3B, proposed 'hundreds' of targets for US strikes. Pentagon investigators, as reported by Bloomberg, found that overreliance on Maven contributed to the 28 February 2026 strike on the Shajarah Tayyebeh Elementary School in Minab, which killed at least 123 children; outdated data had catalogued the school as a Revolutionary Guard site and Maven output it as 'a recommended day-one target.' Palantir says its software was not at fault. Karp, in February 2026: 'our weapons software is in every combat situation I'm aware of.'
Sources: Thiel's Palantir, Israel Agree Strategic Partnership for Battle Tech (Bloomberg reprint hosted by Palantir), Middle East Eye, jpost.com, UN Human Rights Council (A/HRC/59/23), AFSC Investigate, news.antiwar.com, en.wikipedia.org, Responsible Statecraft (citing Washington Post, Bloomberg), anews.com.tr, ThePrint (summarising Bloomberg)
Palantir's business is fusing other people's data into targets. ELITE turns health-insurance addresses into arrest maps; ImmigrationOS exists to 'flag individuals'; in Israel, the UN report says, Palantir supplied 'automatic predictive policing technology', and Al Jazeera reports its software integrates 'intercepted communications, satellite imagery and other datasets'.
Karp presents this as privacy protection. 'Palantir is the most important protector of the Fourth Amendment', he told CNBC in March 2026, adding: 'The Fourth Amendment does not apply to adversaries on the battlefield.' At the DealBook Summit in December 2025 he said of surveillance data: 'Are our enemies surveilled using data that goes in our product? 100% and I completely support that.'
Sources: eff.org, americanimmigrationcouncil.org, UN Human Rights Council (A/HRC/59/23), jpost.com, gizmodo.com, gizmodo.com
Karp does not hide what his product is for. On Palantir's February 2025 earnings call he said the company exists 'to scare enemies and on occasion kill them'; on the same call he said of the Trump administration's purge of the federal government: 'Some people are going to get their heads cut off.'
At a May 2024 Capitol Hill forum he said he had 'all sorts of fantasies of using drone-enabled technology to exact revenge — especially targeted — in violation of all norms', and offered pro-Palestinian campus protesters 'an exchange program sponsored by Karp. A couple months in North Korea.' The same month he said the protesters were 'praying to the altar of a new form of pagan religion.' In February 2025: 'I love the idea of getting a drone and having light fentanyl-laced urine spraying on analysts that tried to screw us.'
Asked on a November 2025 podcast about German culture, he said: 'I spend a lot of time talking to Nazis. Like, real Nazis', framing it as an effort at 'understanding what made them tick'. On staff who quit over his support for Israel: 'If you have a position that does not cost you ever to lose an employee, it's not a position.' And on his reputation: 'Being unpopular pays the bills.'
Sources: gizmodo.com, benzinga.com, foxbusiness.com, thestreet.com, futurism.com, nbcconnecticut.com, axios.com
Karp's 2025 book, written with Palantir executive Nicholas Zamiska, is a manifesto for militarising Silicon Valley. It says 'the engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation' and that the Pentagon must become 'an organization that can design, build, and acquire AI weaponry.' The Nation notes it calls for 'a new Manhattan Project' to keep 'the most sophisticated forms of AI for the battlefield' and suggests 'moving away from an all-volunteer force'.
In 2024 he told The New York Times: 'I'm not apologizing for giving our product to Ukraine or Israel or lots of other places.'
Sources: cdn.penguin.co.uk, thenation.com, fortune.com
Palantir's 2026 proxy reports Karp's 2025 compensation at $8.62M, including $2.51M for personal security and $2.00M for aircraft, up from $4.36M in 2024. That is small change: he sold more than $2B of Palantir stock in 2024, and Forbes puts his fortune at $20.2B (5 Oct 2026). He gave $1M to Trump's super PAC MAGA Inc in December 2024 and $3.8M to federal candidates from 2006 to February 2026. The US Army has consolidated Palantir software deals into a contract worth up to $10B over ten years.
Sources: Quiver Quantitative+CEO+2025+Pay+Revealed), Gloom (Palantir proxy data), sherwood.news, Forbes, AFSC Investigate, Breaking Defense
Palantir is here to disrupt and make the institutions we partner with the very best in the world and, when it's necessary, to scare enemies and on occasion kill them
— Alex Karp, Palantir Q4 2024 earnings call, February 2025
mostly terrorists, that's true
— Alex Karp, to a protester, Hill & Valley Forum, 30 April 2025 (as recorded in UN report A/HRC/59/23)
I am proud that we are supporting Israel in every way we can
— Alex Karp, CNBC, November 2023
I had all sorts of fantasies of using drone-enabled technology to exact revenge — especially targeted — in violation of all norms.
— Alex Karp, Capitol Hill forum, 1 May 2024
We're gonna do an exchange program sponsored by Karp. A couple months in North Korea, nice-tasting flavored bark.
— Alex Karp, on campus protesters, Capitol Hill forum, 1 May 2024
They are literally praying to the altar of a new form of pagan religion
— Alex Karp, on campus protesters, AI Expo, Washington, May 2024
I love the idea of getting a drone and having light fentanyl-laced urine spraying on analysts that tried to screw us
— Alex Karp, February 2025
If you are critical of ICE, you should be out there protesting for more Palantir.
— Alex Karp, CNBC, 2 February 2026
I spend a lot of time talking to Nazis. Like, real Nazis.
— Alex Karp, podcast interview with Molly O'Shea, November 2025
The Fourth Amendment does not apply to adversaries on the battlefield.
— Alex Karp, CNBC, 12 March 2026
● confirmed by a primary document · ○ reported
Alexander Karp(1) 6,432,258 * 86,907,993 64.0 335,000 33.3 11.4
$1 million donation to MAGA Inc. in December 2024
total compensation for fiscal 2025 was $8,623,000 ... Salary: $1,101,637 ... All other compensation: $7,521,363 ... $2,506,484 for personal security services, $1,998,476 for aircraft costs, and $2,390,000 in HSR Act filing fees
Owner-supplied link to the Summary Compensation Table; HTTP 403 to our fetcher.
Alexander Karp — — 3,900,000 547,521,000
No open stories name this person right now.
Mr. Karp is one of our co-founders and has served in various positions with us since co-founding Palantir. He has served as our Chief Executive Officer ("CEO") since 2005
Palantir Technologies Inc. ... has agreed to a strategic partnership with the Israeli Defense Ministry to supply technology to help the country's war effort.