Palantir Chief Defends Company's Work With ICE, Claims He's Running 'The Most Important Tech Company in the World

Palantir chief executive Alex Karp defended his company's expanding role in the Trump administration's immigration enforcement efforts, arguing that the data software company is not enabling domestic surveillance of Americans.

"I care about two issues: I care about immigration and re-establishing the deterrent capacity of America without being a colonialist neocon view," he said as The New York Times reports. "On those two issues, this president has performed."

He also rejected accusations that President Donald Trump is a fascist, saying, "Of course not. I think that's stupid, honestly."

Palantir has secured federal contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars since Trump returned to office. Those include work to support Immigration and Customs Enforcement as it pursues increased arrests and deportations.

Some former employees have raised concerns over the company's role, but Karp said Palantir is not assisting mass surveillance of Americans. "Are we building a database that can be used for surveillance? No," he said. He added that he "completely" supports surveillance of U.S. adversaries.

Palantir's work has coincided with broader efforts by federal agencies to integrate artificial intelligence into immigration enforcement. DHS and ICE have expanded the use of software to identify targets, combining government records with other data sources to accelerate arrests and removals.

This year, Palantir won a contract worth nearly $30 million to develop ImmigrationOS, a new platform enabling ICE agents to approve raids, route detainees into deportation and generate legal documents from a single interface. DHS officials have described the system as consolidating existing enforcement tools into a more efficient process.

In parallel, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is preparing to expand its surveillance capabilities by hiring private contractors to monitor social-media platforms and convert publicly available posts into leads for enforcement actions, according to planning documents.

The program would operate around the clock at two ICE targeting centers in Vermont and California, where analysts would review information from platforms such as Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram to support arrests and deportations.

Civil-liberties groups have raised concerns about how rapidly expanding automation could influence decisions about who is detained or deported. Critics warn that growing reliance on AI could reduce transparency and increase the potential for errors or bias.

Karp dismissed skepticism surrounding the company's financial and strategic trajectory while also touting his company's role. "I am running the most important tech company in the world," he said.