Palantir released a mini-manifesto over the weekend based on its CEO’s book that clarified the company’s position on everything from reinstating the military draft to Silicon Valley’s moral duty to help America defend itself.
In a post that received 32 million views on the company’s X account, Palantir presented a 22-point manifesto. The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the WestCo-authored by CEO Alex Karp and Head of Corporate Affairs Nicholas Zamiska.
One of the document’s main arguments is that Silicon Valley owes a “moral debt” to the country that made its rise possible. The manifesto argues, the “engineering elite” has spent decades building obsession-driven apps and social media platforms while failing to contribute enough to the defense industry that is “necessary to preserve the enduring but tenuous geopolitical advantage the United States and its allies in Europe and elsewhere maintain over their advertising.”
The rise of the US software industry was built on a public-private-sector partnership that Silicon Valley tends to forget, the authors claim. This partnership has funded the research behind medicine, rockets and satellites, yet few in technology accept credit, opting today for less risky endeavors rather than contributing to the advancement of the country and the well-being of its citizens.
“Why take the chance to wade into the moral quagmire of geopolitics and deal with controversy when you can make another app?” asks the book.
The manifesto is equally bleak in the military. Karp and his coauthors argue that the US should move away from an all-volunteer force so that everyone shares the risk of war. The idea pays tribute to the late Rep. Charles Rangel (DN.Y.), who believed the draft should be reinstated so that every citizen pulls his weight in the event of a necessary conflict. Without conscription, which ended in 1973, the authors claim “one generation of political elites essentially recruited others to fight wars overseas.”
The manifesto also argues that the nuclear age is coming to an end and that another era of deterrence will be built on AI. This will lead to US tech companies building AI weapons and not giving in to protesters, the authors claim, because America’s adversaries “will not stop to dramatically debate” whether to build advanced AI weapons.
This argument is the object of the employee resistance that has plagued Palantir and others. Google declined to renew its Project Maven AI military contract in 2018 after employee protests; Palantir has taken it. Last year, 13 former Palantir employees also wrote an open letter criticizing the company’s work with the Trump administration.
