Alex Karp said he sympathizes with his critics, and there are many. Just last week, protestors picketed his company’s Palo Alto, California, headquarters, shouting “time to cancel Palantir” and describing it as a “dirty data company.” Another group was arrested in front of an Amazon Bookstore in part to oppose Amazon.com Inc.’s business ties to Palantir Technologies Inc. Karp is also happy to weigh concerns raised by his own employees, who worry that Palantir’s software has aided in the separation of children from their parents by U.S. immigration authorities.
But Karp, Palantir’s chief executive officer, has a message for those critics: The company’s relationship with Immigration and Customs Enforcement is here to stay. In his first interview after ICE said this week it was extending a contract with Palantir through 2022, Karp seemed sympathetic to President Donald Trump’s stance on border issues. He favors, as he put it, “a fair but rigorous immigration policy.” As for separating families, Karp said, “It’s a really tough, complex, jarring moral issue.”