Billionaire tech CEO calls wokeness at Ivy Leagues the 'central risk' to America

Alex Karp, chief executive officer of Palantir Technologies Inc., during the FoundryCon event in Palo Alto, California, US, on Thursday, March 7, 2024. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Billionaire Palantir CEO Alex Karp recently described wokeness as the main threat to his tech company and America overall. 

The outspoken executive made the statement during a recent earnings call, noting that his company, which specializes in making software for data collection, had seen strong growth in the latest period because it champions western values while other companies and institutions have suffered for embracing progressive ideology.

"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.

"There are lots of questions about why we are so active in defending the values of the West, that our belief that the West is a superior way to live, and our ways of organizing around that are the reason why our products are transformative," he said.

Karp continued, "the reason why we have the best people in the world; the reason why a Palantir degree, as it were, is much more valuable than an Ivy League degree."

He went on, stating that "the Ivy Leagues" have "embraced the thin and new woke religion, otherwise, viewed as an intellectual cause, but in fact, is a way of organizing things so that the greatest institutions of our time disappear and turn into discriminatory dysfunction."

Karp called Palantir a "counter-example" to companies that have embraced wokeness, adding, "I’m super proud of the results. We are going to continue to execute, especially in the U.S."