The CEO of Palantir slammed short sellers — who make money by betting that a listed company’s stock price will fall — in a bizarre rant on Wednesday.
In an interview with CNBC’s “Money Movers,” Alex Karp said he took pleasure knowing that traders who’d shorted Palantir would now have less money to spend on cocaine given the software company’s shares were up 46% this year.
“I love burning the short-sellers,” he told the outlet. “Almost nothing makes a human happier than taking the lines of cocaine away from these short-sellers who are going short on a truly great American company — not just ours, but just love pulling down great American companies so that they can pay for their coke.”
Karp added: “The best thing that would happen to them is we will lead their coke dealers to their homes after they can’t pay their bills.”
Palantir had one of its best trading days of the year last Wednesday. Its shares spiked 10% after announcing a deal with the US Army to develop its TITAN ground station system, which uses artificial intelligence to guide missiles. Big one-day moves like that often leave short-sellers facing significant losses.
Just over 4% of Palantir’s available shares are being shorted, according to data from Refinitiv. Goldman Sachs, Barclays, and Ken Griffin’s hedge fund Citadel are among the names who’ve bet against Karp’s company, per MarketBeat.
Karp also acknowledged in his CNBC interview that some Palantir staff had left due to its vocal support for Israel.
“We’ve lost employees. I’m sure we’ll lose employees,” he said. “If you have a position that does not cost you ever to lose an employee, it’s not a position.”
In January, Karp flew Palantir’s board to Tel Aviv in a show of solidarity amid the ongoing war with Hamas, while the software company — founded by the right-wing billionaire Peter Thiel — has also inked a deal to provide Israel with battle tech.
Disclosure: Palantir Technologies CEO Alexander Karp is a member of Axel Springer’s shareholder committee. Axel Springer owns Insider Inc, Business Insider’s parent company.
