Thought being the CEO of Palantir was hard? Try sitting still during an interview.
The company’s head honcho Alex Karp, who rose to fame and fortune by investing in startups alongside billionaire Peter Thiel since the early 2000s, made a baffling appearance at the New York Times DealBook Summit last week, arguing that president Donald Trump isn’t a fascist and defending his company’s business with ICE. He even went as far as to assert that legalized war crimes would be a good thing.
During that storm of amazing ideas, Karp could be seen squirming in his seat, often half rising to his feet and stammering as he struggled to form a sentence. Was it a demonstration of Karp’s ultra-focused commitment to warmongers and building out military surveillance tech — or, as many suggested online, could he have been under the influence of mind-altering substances?
“What type of drugs is he on?” pondered one observer on social media. “All of them by the looks of it,” another answered.
The ribbing lasted for days after the bizarre interview. And then, just as the dustup seemed to be fading, Palantir’s official account shared a new tweet on Sunday that embedded the controversial video and used a very particular choice of wording.
“While cross-country skiing this morning, Dr. Karp decided to launch a new program: The Neurodivergent Fellowship,” the company wrote. “If you find yourself relating to him in this video — unable to sit still, or thinking faster than you can speak — we encourage you to apply.”
The issue, as countless users pointed out in the comments, is that “skiing” is a common slang term for snorting cocaine.
“Nothing like a little fresh pow pow to clear the mind,” one user responded, adding an AI-generated clip of Karp performing handstand pushups while holding to the armrests of his chair.
“The craziest part of this is that you said skiing,” another user chided.
It’s not clear whether Palantir was intentionally trolling or simply picked the worst possible way to tamp down rumors of drug use by its CEO; we reached out to the company for clarification, but haven’t heard back.
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