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Palantir CEO Rejects AfD and Warns Germany Has Lost Its Tech Edge

Palantir's support for Ukraine, reflected in Karp's recent Kyiv visit, explains his concern about the AfD's Russia-friendly stance and constrained public debate.

Overview

  • Alex Karp said he would not vote for the Alternative für Deutschland if he could, citing parts of the party's sympathy for Vladimir Putin during a Monday appearance on the MD MEETS podcast.
  • Karp called the rise of extreme parties 'absolutely predictable' and blamed flawed migration policy and a failure to hold an honest public discussion about its consequences.
  • He condemned Germany's debate culture as having an 'unbearably difficult and painful' inability to speak about obvious facts, which he linked to the country's history and political discourse.
  • Karp said Germany has fallen behind as a global tech hub and pointed to market-value comparisons, noting that Palantir is worth substantially more than Siemens as a sign of that decline.
  • Palantir provides software used by Ukraine and Karp recently met President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a background that frames his foreign-policy criticism and could widen scrutiny of tech firms' political roles without any recorded official response so far.