{"id":67675,"date":"2026-06-09T16:20:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T16:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/67675\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T16:20:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T16:20:11","slug":"palantir-ceo-alex-karp-says-executives-who-brag-about-their-ai-cuts-might-as-well-sign-up-for-the-bernie-sanders-manifesto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/67675\/","title":{"rendered":"Palantir CEO Alex Karp says executives who brag about their AI cuts might as well ‘sign up for the Bernie Sanders manifesto’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Palantir<\/a> CEO Alex Karp<\/a> has a message for Silicon Valley executives touting artificial intelligence-driven job cuts: Don\u2019t be surprised if workers\u2014and voters\u2014turn against you.<\/p>\n

Speaking last week on TBPN<\/a>, the tech talk show recently acquired by OpenAI<\/a>, the leader of the roughly $325 billion defense contracting and software company warned that corporate leaders need to be more \u201cdisciplined\u201d around how they talk about AI and the future of work.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you run around saying AI allowed you to fire two-thirds of your workforce\u2014because maybe your competitor\u2019s kicking your ass\u2014you might as well just go sign up for the Bernie Sanders manifesto,\u201d Karp said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The jab referenced a growing backlash against the power of major technology firms and fears that artificial intelligence could accelerate job losses. Tech companies have laid off roughly<\/a> 117,000 employees in 2026 alone\u2014nearly matching the total for all of 2025\u2014with firms including Meta<\/a>, Snap<\/a>, and Block<\/a> pointing to AI as a factor in restructuring efforts.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a concern that Sen. Bernie Sanders<\/a> (I-Vt.) has increasingly seized on. The longtime progressive has repeatedly accused major tech firms of prioritizing profits over workers and warned that automation could deepen economic inequality.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Mark Zuckerberg is willing to lay off 10% of his own employees, what do you think his AI will do to the average American worker?\u201d Sanders wrote<\/a> in May.<\/p>\n

The unease comes at a moment when the future of work remains unsettled. Even as tech revenues climb, layoffs have brought more questions about how AI-driven gains will be distributed\u2014a dynamic that could fuel greater support for interventionist economic policies from lawmakers like Sanders and deepen a broader backlash among voters and employees against AI-focused corporate leadership.<\/p>\n

Karp warns tech leaders are \u2018playing with fire\u2019<\/p>\n

While Sanders has stopped short of opposing AI outright, the 84-year-old has proposed more aggressive government intervention in the industry\u2014including an \u201cAI Sovereign Wealth Fund\u201d<\/a> that would tax companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI through equity stakes, with returns eventually flowing to Americans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He has also backed legi<\/a>s<\/a>lation<\/a> aimed at slowing the expansion of AI data centers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Those efforts have tapped into growing unease about AI, driven both by fears of job displacement and concerns over the rapid spread of data centers in local communities. Between 2025 and 2026, the share of Gen Z respondents who said AI made them feel angry rose by nine percentage points, while feelings of excitement and hopefulness declined, according to Gallup<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For Karp, that backlash could only continue to grow\u2014and threaten the competitiveness of business.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese things are very, very explosive,\u201d Karp said. \u201cThe American people sense that there is something dangerous here. And when people are playing with that fire, they assume it won\u2019t burn their hands. That\u2019s not the world we\u2019re in. That fire is going to consume us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fortune reached out to Karp and Sanders for further comment.<\/p>\n

Palantir, too, plans to reduce its headcount: \u2018The goal is to get 10x revenue\u2019<\/p>\n

Karp\u2019s concerns about executives using AI as a public justification for layoffs were echoed this week by fellow Palantir cofounder Joe Lonsdale<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone who over-hired or lowered the bar too much in the 2021-2023 wave, or isn\u2019t growing as fast as budgeted, now pretends they\u2019re laying people off \u2018due to AI productivity,\u2019\u201d Lonsdale wrote on X on Monday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe in higher productivity thanks to AI\u2014which by the way also often makes each person worth more,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Yet their comments come with an important caveat: Palantir itself is embracing AI-driven efficiency and does not plan to significantly expand its workforce.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re planning to grow our revenue \u2026 while decreasing our number of people,\u201d Karp said last August on CNBC<\/a>.\u00a0 \u201cThis is a crazy, efficient revolution. The goal is to get 10x revenue and have 3,600 people. We have now 4,100.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rather than conducting sweeping layoffs, Karp told analysts Palantir plans to largely freeze hiring and use AI to multiply employee productivity. Still, the company\u2019s overall headcount has continued to fluctuate. In its 2025 annual report<\/a>, Palantir reported 4,429 full-time employees.<\/p>\n

Karp has argued that AI is increasing the value of top performers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe soldiers at the bottom have gotten much more valuable\u2026the modern enterprise is going to have a very smart executive at the top, and then very talented, creative people with taste all up and down the stack,\u201d he said on TBPN.<\/p>\n

In a May letter to shareholders<\/a>, Karp reported annualized revenue per employee in the U.S. climbed to $1.6 million, up from $884,000 a year earlier\u2014even as the company maintained what he called unusually strict \u201chiring discipline\u201d for the software industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Palantir CEO Alex Karp has a message for Silicon Valley executives touting artificial intelligence-driven job cuts: Don\u2019t be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67676,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24,2938,25,4703,743,37951,1297,361,651,3973,2821,2943,6046],"class_list":["post-67675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ai","tag-ai","tag-american-workers","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-bernie-sanders","tag-chief-executive-officer-ceo","tag-defense-contractors","tag-layoffs","tag-palantir","tag-palantir-technologies","tag-tech-workers","tag-the-future-of-work","tag-u-s-workers","tag-view-from-the-c-suite"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}