Palantir CEO Warns AI Firms of Nationalization Risk

Palantir CEO Alex Karp has warned that major artificial intelligence (AI) companies risk being nationalized, arguing that momentum is shifting toward advocates of greater government control.

Speaking with TBPN at Palantir’s AIPCon 10 event, Karp said he had spent six months privately warning leading AI executives about the potential threat. (Photo: FASTILY, Wikimedia Commons)

The warning came as Sen. Bernie Sanders said he plans to introduce legislation that would give the public a 50 percent ownership stake in the country’s largest AI firms, Mohammed Haider reported for Benzinga.

Speaking with TBPN at Palantir’s AIPCon 10 event, Karp said he had spent six months privately warning leading AI executives about the potential threat.

According to Karp, many executives dismissed the concern.

“Why would anyone nationalize us? We’re so likable. We’re creating so much value,” Karp said, paraphrasing the response he received.

He added that “the momentum is on the side of people who want to nationalize them … if we don’t get our act together.” The warning is not entirely new.

In March, Karp told Silicon Valley executives that displacing white-collar workers while alienating the military could increase pressure to nationalize AI technologies.

Sanders recently published a guest essay in The New York Times outlining his proposed American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, which would impose a one-time 50 percent tax on the stock — not profits — of major AI firms, including OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI, with proceeds directed into a federal investment fund.