Palantir CEO says Columbia protesters should do ‘exchange program’ in North Korea
Palantir CEO Alex Karp eviscerated anti-Israel protesters who have caused chaos on college campuses, saying they should be shipped off to North Korea as part of an “exchange program” to give them perspective.
The software boss took aim at Columbia students who had shut down the Ivy League campus over the past weeks to rail against Israel’s response in Gaza to the deadly Oct. 7 terror attacks by Hamas — and claimed some protesters have even praised North Korea.
“We’re gonna do an exchange program sponsored by Karp,” he said. “A couple months in North Korea, nice-tasting flavored bark. See how you feel about that.”
Karp — whose Peter Thiel-linked firm has grown increasingly more important to the government’s defense-tech plans — was the featured speaker at the invite-only Hill and Valley Forum in Washington, DC, on Wednesday.
“Look at Columbia,” Karp continued, in comments first reported by Politico.
“There is literally no way to explain the investment in our elite schools, and the output is a pagan religion — a pagan religion of mediocrity, and discrimination, and intolerance, and violence.”
His comments come a day after the NYPD stormed the Columbia campus to arrest more than 100 pro-Palestinian protesters who broke in and occupied Hamilton Hall.
The Palantir boss, a vocal supporter of Israel, called the protests “unforgivable” and “incomprehensible” during his 30-minute appearance at the event, which is arranged annually to connect elected government officials with tech-industry titans.
Democratic Sen. Cory Booker and independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, as well as several Republican lawmakers also spoke at the event, along with a surprise recorded video appearance by former President Donald, Politico reported.
Karp said that progressive students have bought into “an architecture of anti-discrimination while dressing in masks and excluding the population that’s been most discriminated [against] for the last 3,000 years,” per Politico.
He also took a bizarre shot at “Silicon Valley venture people,” saying he has had “fantasies of using drone-enabled technology to exact revenge — especially targeted — in violation of all norms.”
It wasn’t immediately clear which enemies Karp had in mind.
On Thursday, President Joe Biden broke a 10-day silence on the pro-terror anarchy spreading across US college campuses.
He declared in a 3.5-minute speech from the White House Roosevelt Room that the US is not a “lawless country” and “order must prevail,” while acknowledging the right to peaceful demonstrations — and rejected calls to bring out the National Guard.
“It is against the law when violence occurs. Destroying property is not a peaceful protest, it’s against the law. Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduations, none of this is a peaceful protest,” the president said.”Threatening people, intimidating people, instilling fear in people is not peaceful protest, it is against the law.”
Biden also said that the protests had not swayed his fundamental position in support of Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip to destroy the Hamas terror group.
