For Palantir’s Democrat-supporting CEO, the fact that co-founder and chairman Peter Thiel enthusiastically supported Donald Trump made things difficult for the company.
CEO Alex Karp co-founded Palantir Technologies, the data analytics company known for its defense contracts and ties to the CIA, with Thiel and three others in 2003 and has since built it into a $72 billion behemoth. But while Karp and Thiel are close friends and share many views, including on the supposed superiority of the West, they differ on policy issues.
Karp, who grew up in a left-wing family with activist parents, describes himself as “progressive but not woke,” he told the New York Times. He previously supported and donated to President Joe Biden and is now supporting Vice President Kamala Harris for president. Thiel has become one of Trump’s biggest supporters in Silicon Valley.
Thiel’s public support of Republicans like Ron Paul, Ted Cruz and most recently Trump has made him a popular target for Democrats for years, and that criticism has often extended to Palantir. Karp said Thiel’s politics have sometimes complicated things when it comes to government contracts, especially after he pledged his support for Trump in 2016.
“I didn’t enjoy it,” he said of Thiel’s public support for Trump. “There are many reasons why I wrote a check to Biden. I don’t like being protested against every day. It was completely silly and ridiculous. Actually, it was the opposite. Because Peter had supported Mr. Trump, it was actually harder to get things done.”
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During Trump’s tenure, Palantir’s government contracts caused uproar among the company’s employees, who were divided over issues such as the company’s cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Washington Post reported at the time. In 2017, about 50 people gathered outside Thiel’s San Francisco home to protest the ICE contract. Last May, pro-Palestinian protesters locked Thiel in a building while he was visiting the British Cambridge Union Society.
Thiel, who is also a co-founder of PayPal and a former Facebook investor, gave Trump $1.25 million in 2016, the Just reported at the time. After Trump won the election, Thiel joined Trump’s transition team at the White House and later organized a meeting of some of the world’s most influential tech CEOs at Trump Tower.
Although Palantir’s government contracts exploded under Trump, boosted by an $800 million Army contract the company won in 2019, Karp was not a fan of Thiel’s support for Trump and told him so, he says.
“Peter and I talk about everything,” Karp told Just“It’s like, yes, I definitely told Peter, ‘This isn’t making our lives any easier.'”
While Karp did not elaborate on how Thiel responded to the criticism, he said Palantir has faced less criticism recently.
“I think we’re perceived a little differently now. A lot of that had to do with Trump and the work of ICE,” he said. “That built up, and we were definitely outsiders. We’re still outsiders, but I definitely sense less resistance. And maybe people have a better idea of what we’re doing, too. Defense technology is a big part of Silicon Valley now.”
Late last year, Thiel turned down Trump’s request to donate $10 million to his campaign and has since said he will no longer donate to any presidential candidate (but he said he will still vote for Trump).
Although Silicon Valley personalities typically tend to lean Democratic, in recent months more and more of them have bucked the trend and supported Trump.
Despite the usual left-wing bias, Karp said Silicon Valley’s extravagance contributed in part to Trump’s rise.
“I don’t think there would be a Trump phenomenon without the excesses of Silicon Valley,” Karp told Just“Very, very rich people supporting policies that don’t require them to bear any of the costs at all. And there’s a general feeling that these people aren’t tied to our society and are becoming billionaires at the same time.”
