Palantir CEO Alex Karp unloaded on rival AI companies during a heated interview on CNBC on Wednesday, accusing them of having an “effing insane” business model while openly fretting he was a “mad man” who was about to get kicked out of the studio.
In a nearly unbroken 20-minute monologue, the data mining executive implied that top AI labs such as Anthropic and OpenAI were misleading corporate partners and the public alike by trying to “oversell” the risks of AI while at the same time offering powerful models to companies and governments across the world.
He also suggested top AI companies are eating into their ostensible partners’ confidential data and business advantages through their models.
“The ‘I’m going to trust you, you should trust me because I’ve never lied,’ b.s. thing, that just doesn’t cut it at this level,” Karp said, seeming to mock the philosophical emphasis that companies such as Anthropic claim guides their business practices.
Karp, a cross-country skiing eccentric known for brandishing swords in the office and musing on using Palantir tech to kill people, repeatedly cut off his interviewers, claiming he was speaking for numerous businesses and governments who were “twice as livid as me.”
“This is the voice of American business that is being channeled through me,” he said at one point.
Karp added that these complaints get “outsourced” to him, claiming companies prefer if they come from the “neurodivergent crazy person that apparently is on drugs, the one thing I don’t do.”
In recent months, some companies have pulled back their spending on AI, as firms continue to report only mixed value from deploying models across their businesses.
“I feel like I’m going to be kicked out of the room,” he added once his rant was over, asking his co-panelists, “We’re off camera now?” as the broadcast continued awkwardly.
The Independent has contacted Anthropic and OpenAI for comment.
The CEO’s comments come at a time of rapidly shifting political dynamics around AI companies.
Earlier this year, the U.S. deemed Anthropic a “supply-chain risk,” preventing contractors from using Anthropic’s AI when working for the U.S. military, after the company said it had concerns its models could be used for mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons systems. (The military insists it only will use the models for legal purposes, and that it doesn’t conduct domestic surveillance. Anthropic has challenged the supply-chain risk designation in court.)
The government also temporarily put export bans on Anthropic’s latest high-powered models over fears they could be used by U.S. adversaries to find vulnerabilities in key infrastructure and launch attacks, though those restrictions are in the process of being lifted.
Palantir, which donated to President Trump’s ballroom, and Karp, who donated to his inauguration, have enjoyed a closer relationship with the president. The administration has awarded the company new contracts to build on its already substantial business with the U.S. government.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has floated that the Trump administration could take a stake in the company, furthering its deep ties to the government, after it was boosted by early funding from the CIA’s venture-capital arm in the early 2000s.
Trump administration members, including the president and his homeland security adviser Stephen Miller, have disclosed owning stock in Palantir.
These same U.S. government ties have alarmed European leaders, some of whom are pushing to separate from the influential data mining firm.
France announced in June it would favor domestic providers over Palantir, calling its ties to the U.S. company a set of “new strategic dependencies in the digital sphere.”
British leaders, meanwhile, are calling on the country’s National Health Service to drop its existing Palantir contract, and Spain is reportedly considering distancing itself from Palantir, too.
