“I have always been a Democrat”: the CEO of Palantir, long an ally of Trump, distances himself from the American president

If Alex Karp had lived under the Third Republic, we would have easily ranked him among the “radicals”, these clever centrist deputies, who managed to slip into almost all governments between 1901 and 1940. The boss of Palantir, an American data analysis giant, has just given the illustration in an interview with POLITICO, in which he states: “I have always been a democrat. I know more about progressivism than almost anyone on the planet, and I absolutely believe that all of our products are inherently progressive.

» A clearly felt shift, as the debacle of Donald Trump's supporters in the mid-term elections suggests a change of direction in the regulation of tech in Washington. Indeed, the businessman had established himself in recent years as one of the American president's main contacts in the world of tech. He multiplied the pharaonic contracts with the Republican administration and openly supported several of its positions, from reducing immigration to opposing a “pause” in the development of artificial intelligence.

A distrust of regulation that Alex Karp formalized in a 22-point manifesto, published on behalf of Palantir, in April 2026. The businessman defends a vision of artificial intelligence entirely at the service of American military power, calls on Silicon Valley to assume a patriotic duty towards the State, and makes the military and technological domination of the United States the condition for the survival of Western civilization. » READ ALSO - “A new era of deterrence based on AI”: the astonishing technonationalist manifesto of the American giant Palantir But less than an about-face, it is in reality a return to basics.

Raised in an “extreme left” environment (in his words), he obtained a doctorate in philosophy from the progressive German philosopher Jürgen Habermas, before going into business. In the United States, he successively supported and financed the Democratic presidential candidacies of Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, fueling deep hostility towards Donald Trump, about whom he said he “respected nothing” in 2015. “Completely anti-woke” Alex Karp finally got closer to Donald Trump thanks to his return to the White House and the rise of a democratic left increasingly hostile to Israel, which he supports firmly.

Calling Palantir a “completely anti-woke” company, he is forming a close industrial partnership with the Republican administration, notably putting his company’s data power at the service of the president’s deportation policy, in order to identify, locate, prioritize and track people likely to be deported. Palantir is also consolidating its position as a major strategic partner of the Pentagon, with a framework contract capped at 10 billion euros concluded in 2025. Now, Alex Karp is once again critical of Donald Trump, judging that the implementation of his migration restriction policy has gone “too far”.

However, he described “unrestricted” immigration as a “disaster” a year ago, in the columns of the Washington Post. The CEO of Palantir even goes so far as to open the door to supporting a Democratic candidate for the 2028 presidential election, provided that the candidate is not a socialist. “I ask the following question: 'What are you going to do for economic justice in this country?

“And I would say that the Democrats have an advantage on this point”, launched Alex Karp, castigating “many Republicans” among whom “there is a well-anchored belief according to which capitalism solves all problems”. He now ensures that “[his] donations are distributed equally between Democrats and Republicans”, presenting himself as “very balanced.

Machine-translated from French