Palantir CEO’s rant about the Anthropic-Pentagon feud threatening his company was about a lot more than a dirty word

AI “seems much worse for the math people than the word people,” Peter Thiel tersely said in 2024. He likely wasn’t anticipating that just two years later his Palantir cofounder, CEO Alex Karp, would use some decidedly flowery language to describe people he thought were stupid.

“If Silicon Valley believes we are going to take away everyone’s white-collar job … and you’re gonna screw the military—if you don’t think that’s gonna lead to nationalization of our technology, you’re retarded,” Karp said while speaking at the a16z American Dynamism Summit. “You might be particularly retarded, because you have a 160 IQ.”

Karp was commenting on a topic that has taken the AI world by storm: In what capacity should AI companies collaborate with the government? A closer look explains why a dustup between the Pentagon and two totally separate companies (Anthropic and OpenAI) has prompted Karp’s displeasure.

Katherine Boyle, general partner at a16z, moderated the breakout session, which was titled “AI in Defense of the West.”

At which Karp noted: “If Silicon Valley believes we are going to take away everyone’s white-collar job—meaning primarily Democratic-shaped people that you might grow up with, highly educa...