The Blubber

Palantir, PLTR, CEO has said that China's DeepSeek shows that U.S. needs 'all-country effort' in AI.

Palantir CEO Alex Karp warned that the rise of competing artificial intelligence models like China’s DeepSeek highlights the urgent need for the U.S. to accelerate its AI development efforts.

“Technology is not inherently good,” Karp told CNBC’s Sara Eisen in an interview airing Friday. “In the wrong hands, it can become a threat. That just means we need to run harder, run faster, and launch a national effort.”

Karp, whose company provides software and systems to defense agencies, called the U.S. the “best tech hub in the world” but acknowledged that competitors like DeepSeek have “woken up” the industry to the risks posed by second movers. He expressed optimism that U.S. national security efforts will focus on protecting American innovation from theft and manipulation.

DeepSeek made headlines this week after its open-source AI model overtook OpenAI’s ChatGPT as the top free app on Apple’s U.S. App Store. The news rattled markets, with tech stocks selling off on Monday. Nvidia suffered the biggest single-day market value loss in history. Reports that DeepSeek’s model was developed at a fraction of the cost of its competitors raised new questions about the massive capital tech giants have poured into AI.

“I don’t really believe the cost estimates for DeepSeek’s creation,” Karp said.

Palantir’s stock has surged more than 425% in the past year, outperforming every other S&P 500 company in 2024. The stock is up 12% since January and hit a record high on Friday, pushing the company’s valuation to nearly $200 billion.

Much of Palantir’s growth has been fueled by increasing demand for AI-driven solutions. Karp emphasized that improving the U.S. is the company’s “primary objective” and that Palantir is leading the transformation of how American businesses operate through AI.

Karp, a vocal supporter of Israel since the Oct. 7 attack, also addressed the controversy surrounding Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Some historians and political figures accused Musk of making a Nazi salute during President Donald Trump’s inauguration event, a claim Karp dismissed as “completely absurd and a total rewriting of history.”

Musk has openly expressed support for Israel and visited the country shortly after the attack.

While Karp refrained from involvement in the recent presidential election, he voiced support for stricter national security policies on illegal immigration. He argued that individuals who entered the U.S. illegally—especially those involved in criminal activities—should not have the right to stay.

“The average American or European is a decent, compassionate person,” Karp said. “There’s no reason they should have to tolerate individuals who engage in serious criminal activity in their communities.”