Palantir CEO makes another controversial statement

Research indicates that in social situations, approximately 38% of people tend to align their political opinions with those of their group rather than forming their own views.

In such cases, discussions on political matters can sometimes lead to backlash. Palantir (PLTR) CEO Alex Karp is recognized for openly expressing his perspective on various topics and has made statements that have garnered attention in the past.

He called out "wokeness" as a big problem:

"I think the central risk to Palantir and America and the world is a regressive way of thinking that is corrupting and corroding our institutions that calls itself ‘progressive,’ but actually — and is called ‘woke,’ but is actually a form of a thin pagan religion," Karp said, according to Fox Business.

His stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict is summed up by his statement: “The peace activists are war activists,” as reported by The Guardian.

But Karp's joke about what he would do to analysts who think Palantir is overvalued was probably the most controversial thing he said so far: “I love the idea of getting a drone and having light fentanyl-laced urine spraying on analysts that tried to screw us," he said, as reported by UK newspaper The Times.

He discussed fentanyl again, but from a different perspective.

Palantir CEO drops bombshell comments on U.S. fentanyl response

At the end of the Q3 earnings call, Karp spoke out about the U.S. fentanyl response.

"We at Palantir are on the side of the average American who sometimes gets screwed because all the empathy goes to elite people and none of it goes to the people who are actually dying on our streets, and that’s why when you have an open border, it means that the average poor American earns less," Karp continued.

"I know my fellow progressives believe that having an open border is going to make things [better], but that's because they're actually repping elite people instead of the working class." 

"To believe our Constitution does not give us the right to stop 60,000 deaths a year of working-class men and women is insane," Karp said.

He continued with “This company,” and corrected himself to say, "This country is right to stop that, and I am very proud — I don't know all the efforts we're involved in — but to the extent we're involved in these efforts, I and most Palantirians are very proud of this."

Some people may interpret this as Karp taking President Doland Trump's side, given that he previously supported former President Joseph Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

But that is not necessarily the case. Karp holds a bachelor's degree in philosophy, which typically includes a focus on logic.

He has shown consistent logical reasoning, so his support for one candidate does not prevent his agreement with an opposing candidate on some issues.

Fentanyl facts

• 2 mg of fentanyl is considered a potentially lethal dose.
• Drug trafficking organizations typically distribute fentanyl by the kilogram.
• One kilogram of fentanyl has the potential to kill 500,000 people.
• 136 people die every day from opioid overdoses.
• Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is up to 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine.
• Fentanyl cannot be absorbed through the skin except via a special doctor-prescribed fentanyl skin patch, and even then, it takes hours of exposure.
• In 2021, more Americans were killed by fentanyl-laced pills and other addictive drugs than in all the wars the United States has fought since the end of World War II.
• In 2021, there were 108,000 overdose deaths due to synthetic opioids (mostly fentanyl), more than twice the number of automobile, gunshot, or suicide deaths.
  Sources: DEA, CDC, UC Davis Health, and a study published in the journal Missouri Medicine.

Conformity and politics

Where did the 38% statistic come from? To understand it, we need to learn about the Asch conformity experiments.

Solomon Asch performed them in the 1950s. He invited individuals into the lab and asked them to judge the length of a line. He also placed six actors in the same room who were assigned to give the wrong answers so that the ignorant subject could hear them before he provided his own answer.

On average, 35% of the subjects provided answers that matched the actors' responses, even if those answers were incorrect. The study has been replicated multiple times, yielding similar results.

In 2023, researchers replicated the experiment with Swiss college students, publishing a study in the journal PLOS One. They tested how social influence can be generalized to matters of political opinion, finding that the conformity rate for political opinions is 38%, even with subjects placed among a group of strangers.

Related: Fund manager sends message on latest Palantir earnings