Palantir CEO Alex Karp: CEOs are Livid 7/1/26

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0:34Gig speeds with equipment and security included. And a five-year price lock. No one does business like Comcast Business. Switch today. Get started for$60 a month for 12 months when you add an advanced solution to a qualifying internet package. Limited time offer. Restrictions apply. New customers only. Requires 300 megabits per second internet, security edge, and additional qualifying service. One-year agreement, paperless billing, and auto pay with bank account required. Taxes and fees extra. Bring in show music, please. Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod. Palantir CEO Alex Karp, a big interview that starts with a new partnership with chip maker NVIDIA.

1:13What aligns me with NVIDIA and I think is what the technical customers want, which is control over their compute, their models, their data stack and their alpha. And spans to everything else he's fired up about in artificial intelligence and national security. Are we really going to outsource the battlefield of this country to the consensus view in Silicon Valley? That is effing insane. Then what happens when two daughters of Congress forge a friendship across the aisle? New children's book authors, Ellie Gottheimer of New Jersey. Just our dads have always been friends. The force stands out well to go to a bipartisan workout group most mornings when we're in Washington, D.C.

1:56So it's kind of trauma bonded over that a little bit. And Laura Mullen, daughter of the Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen. It was definitely very different than when you say the normal childhood. A couple of times I felt like Hannah Montana. Plus a mountain of disclosures about the president's finances. Ethics, watchdogs, obviously are going to be all over this. Should a sitting president be allowed to trade stocks on a regular basis? Show to Congress. Showing more than half a billion dollars in crypto income and raising some questions. We've created a system that at the minimum allows for the perception of effectively bribery.

2:33It is Wednesday, July 1st, 2026. Squawk Pod begins right now. Stand back to you by in three, two, one. Cue it, please. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Squawk Box right here on CNBC. We are live from the NASDAQ market site in Times Square. I'm Becky Quick, along with Joe Kernan and Andrew Ross Sorkin. And here we are. First day of the second half, first day of the third quarter. What a first half it was for the year. At the halfway mark for 2026, the Russell 2000 is the standout performer for that first half. Year to date, it is up by nearly 22%. It closed yesterday's session at a record high once again, above 3 ,000.

3:15The NASDAQ is up by 12.8 % for the first half of the year. The S &P 500 is up by nine and a half percent and the Dow is up by nearly nine percent, closing out its best first half performance since 2021. But if you were looking just at the second quarter, that's where there were some really phenomenal performances, particularly if you were looking at technology stocks. The Nasdaq up by about 21 and a half percent, but the Nasdaq 100, the largest technology companies, up by 27 and a half percent for the quarter. It's unbelievable to kind of watch. We know about the Magnificent Seven and the performance that they've been putting in.

3:49But if you haven't been watching the Parabolic Seven stocks, that was what really took off, not just throughout the entire quarter, but even yesterday. All of those stocks up by about 6 % to 12%. These are the stocks that you're watching. AMD, Dell, Broadcom, Intel. Flip that over, you're also going to be looking at Micron, Marvell, SanDisk. Those seven stocks at this point with the gains that they saw yesterday are actually exceeding the MAG7's multiples for the first time ever. AI is winning and the war and high oil prices losing. That's the only thing I can say. I don't know how you explain it.

4:25How long has the war almost covered the entire quarter? Not quite. It happened right. So all this is happening with that as a backdrop. And what did oil prices average? It came down recently, but they had to average above 90. I was going to say high 80s, 90, 95. So go figure. Is it got to be? Got to be what happened with AI? Yeah, it's got to be AI. Got to be. Yeah, and that Parabolic 7, I mean, they have just taken off. It was the Mag 7 that were the first gainers for what was happening with AI. Now this is the second iteration of that, and it's been something to watch. We've got a guy coming on in a second who is calling him the Lag 7.

5:04Instead of the Mag 7? We'll see what he means. Because Parabolic 7 is taking over. See what he means by that. They haven't done quite as well, but we'll see what he means. Look at those gains. Micron up 202 percent. SanDisk up 214 percent. They're not lagging yet. Maybe in recent. Just in the last quarter, perhaps. If you look at Treasury yields this morning, because remember, we do get that big jobs report tomorrow, a day early because of the July 4th holiday on Friday. You'll see right now the 10-year is yielding 446. The two-year is at 417. Anthrop now saying the U.S. Commerce Department has lifted export controls on its clawed Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models.

5:40It had disabled access to those models in mid-June to comply with the government's national security restrictions. Anthropik said that Fable 5 will be available to global users on the cloud platform beginning today. And it says it has restored access to Mythos 5 for some U.S. organizations to continue to work with the U.S. government to expand access for more domestic and international partners. And that's a big move in terms of the next stage of all this. Having said that, we talked on Monday just about how there was this new Chinese model, which apparently is as good, if not better, than the Fable and Mythos model.

6:14And so there's at some. We've heard that. We've heard that before. At certain, you know, at certain things. Yeah. I read it and said it very specific. Right. You know, you know, there's all this stuff much better than I do. I've been, by the way, trying to see even as I'm looking, I was trying to see whether I could get back on Fable right now. But I can't yet. It's still disabled. I saw it. Ask me. it asked me whether I wanted it the other day. My friend called. But then it said it wasn't available. It's not. I mean, mine still says currently unavailable. But I had a choice of like three other things that I didn't know if I wanted any of those.

6:49The other models. Yes. Yeah, you weren't reachable. No, I think they want money for some of them, don't they? Oh, I'm a paying customer, so yes. I know you are. I know you are. You're going to end up having to need one of those programs that looks at everything that you've paid for. Signed up for it. You know what I mean? I saw something the other day. I wanted to read an article, and it says you can get 14 days free. And I was like, okay, so I can see the article. But then it said. And it automatically charges you. Yeah. You have to put your credit card in ahead of time. The only thing that ever saves me is that my credit card every once in a while, either I lose it or it gets stolen, and then I cancel it, and then all of the subscriptions have to track me down to say, give me the new credit card, and I say no.

7:28It's a good thing to do occasionally. All right. Separately, Anthropic is starting an internal drug discovery program as part of an effort to develop AI tools for drug makers. The company's head of life sciences said yesterday that the company will focus on discovering treatments for what they call neglected diseases that would be considered attractive targets for traditional pharma companies. A spokesperson told CNBC that the effort was just beginning and that they would share more as their work progresses. Shares of Nike falling to levels that we haven't really seen much recently from this company.

8:02It was a high flyer. A company reporting adjusted earnings of 20 cents a share, beating estimates 39 of 13 cents. That adjusted number does not include 52 cents a share of tariff-related gains, refund-related gains. Analysts didn't include that in their estimates. The company said it collected more than$300 million in tariff refunds, revenue of about$11 billion, topped estimates of$10.9 billion, and North American sales of$4.8 billion. That was apparently below expectations. China sales dropped 12%, but still topped analyst estimates. As for guidance, Nike expects earnings to be flattish for the next two quarters.

8:47I'm doing all this trying to see if this is, you know, it's a new low. And we have to go all the way back to, God. It's down sharply this last year. Probably like an eight-year low, isn't it? Yeah, it's down sharply just this last year, too, if you're watching. But look at the high. I don't know what the high. It looks like it got somewhere around 150. 50 or 60. And the market cap now for the Dow component. I was thinking about that this morning. It's going to be like under, like around$45 billion. And at one point, it had to be well over$100. Three years down 64%. I mean, they've just said that their customers around the globe are...

9:24When you lose Sorkin, you lose. Have you bought any Nike sneakers? When's the last time you bought some Nike sneakers? I haven't bought any Nike sneakers in a while. But I'm rooting for them. I mean, I love Nike more than anything. And that ad, I don't know if you remember that ad right after the Knicks won. It was one of the great sports ads in years. As someone who doesn't watch, you see it online. You don't see it on TV. Because you've been seeing any of these ads. Because you saw some other ad you really liked, too. Oh, for Polymarket. Yeah. Where are you seeing these? online. Well, that one I saw.

9:56No, that one I saw. You're not watching TV. I do watch. I was watching the game at the time. How many times can you watch Billions? I don't understand it. Don't you know every line that's coming? And there's no commercials. I'm watching other things. Really? Yes, I'm watching. But anyway, let's root for Nike because they need to get back. What are we going to do? You don't have to root for Nike. And you know I'm not. I'm rooting against. I don't have to do like so many things. I've been rooting against. I have not bought a nike product in years i won't still mad about those the cops that were like pigs on those socks i'm still mad about that still mad about that i'm sorry mad about kneeling mad about all that um that's not angry young man i'm a little like that cloud i'm shaking okay well tell me what you tell me what you think about this next story because there are no i need to know what you there are people who are making that that who are doing that about you're going You have to tell me how to think.

10:56I don't know. I thought about this. And my answer is there's a lot. OK, I will. But there's a lot of questions. I don't have the answers. You need to tell me how to think about this. Tell the story first. So, no, here's the story. The Office of the Government Ethics released President Trump's annual financial disclosure report yesterday. It revealed that the president pulled in at least two billion dollars in 2025. His crypto related income in 2025 included about five hundred fifteen million dollars from the sale of tokens from the World Liberty from World Liberty Financial and another sixty five million from sales of equity in World Liberty's holding company.

11:36He also received six hundred thirty five million dollars in royalties from celebration coins. It wasn't immediately clear what those coins are, though Bloomberg is reporting that the royalties are related to Mr. Trump's meme coin business. Now, he earned more than$86 million in legal settlements as well. Those included the$24.5 million from Meta,$16 million apiece from Paramount and Disney. And President Trump's biggest stock holdings include Amazon, Meta, NVIDIA, and Tesla. Right. OK. So lots of questions. Tell me what the answers are to the questions, because we don't have answers to the questions, right?

12:17I will tell you. I'll tell you one other thing. He made 4.7 million from I almost contributed to that Trump watches. OK, Trump branded watches. I was going to buy you one. I can't remember which one. Meg, you know, as it do. So this is I say this a lot. And as his support or the others, you know, people say this is how Trump rolls. And it is how President Trump rolls. He's selling watches. He's selling Trump branded watches while he's president. I think that's different than some of the Bitcoin and other issues that his administration is having an impact. You have to. And ethics watchdogs obviously are going to be all over this.

13:02Democrats, if Democrats retake the House, they're going to be all over looking at this. The people in charge of some watchdog groups are saying there needs to be reform across the board. Should a sitting president be allowed to trade stocks on a regular basis? Well, he's not. That's discretionary. His is supposed that they emphasize that that's discretionary. The journal points out he has a vast and sundry business that Donald Trump does. There's no doubt about his sons are running it. They're not stupid, I don't think. And to go from making investments to being able to prove that there was quid pro quo or influence peddling, or whether people just think if I do this, I'm going to be in.

13:48But is charisma the same thing with Biden? That's what I mean. And OK, how about this question? If he was not president, would his businesses have gone up more or less than what happened? Well, you tell me. I don't know. These are my questions. That's why I'm asking you for the answers. So let's start on the World Liberty business. Yeah, because that was 15 billion. It's now 400 million or something or one of them. OK, so that business wouldn't I don't think. First of all, crypto regulations would have been different, probably under a different president. So the opportunity for all those crypto businesses would be different.

14:28But does that mean that they should not have tried to make the. No, it's just can you benefit. But the spokesperson says that the president has made crypto or made the United States the leading country. I understand that. I'm just all I'm look, the thing that I care about as an American is I would love for all of this to just be no money involved with anything. So you are not raising these questions, because invariably what happens is you sit here and you say to yourself, are certain people making decisions for a reason? And by the way, it may not be that the president is making specific decisions to enrich himself, but it may be that there are other people who think that they can influence him.

15:07Maybe they're influencing him and maybe they're not. But either way, you then we sit here and we have to say to ourselves, what's going on? The UAE made a massive investment in world liberty. Would would would the UAE just said what would have happened if he wasn't the president? Would the UAE have made a massive investment in Liberty Financial? I don't know. That's what I said. Questions, but you know what is good? That there is all this disclosure. Sure. Amazing. Disclosure is good. I think it kind of raises the question, though. I think of it more of like when you were allowing the railroad to expand, if you had known about that, if you were going to make some of those changes in advance and you could buy the land along the way before anybody else knew about those things.

15:52I don't know. I don't know exactly how this worked out. But those those are the questions if you have regulatory control and you also have the first mover advantage of knowing. Look, I think that I've I've spoken about very on the show with you about Nancy Pelosi and the trades and how I would tell you that that is. I think I've used the word shameful. So if you if I can say that about trading. What would you say about this? I don't I'm just I'm I'm asking. That's why I told you that you need to tell me how to think about it, because I don't I have questions, but I don't have answers. I think the answer ultimately is that we have to find a way to make it such that our politics are somewhat immune from money.

16:37And we've created a system that at the minimum allows for the perception of effectively bribery. That's what's what is all. It's unprecedented. there's no doubt what's also unprecedented you never had a guy take office it was worth billions and billions of dollars it has a bit they had a business of a successful business of golf courses and all this crap all around the world and that's not going to go away either so i think the question of whether i mean i think definitely after his first term that that hurt his businesses that hurt his brand that hurt and then all the litigation and everything that came right and Another thing, Andrew, if there's smoke, all right, and there's whether there's fire, I would think that there would be a zealous pursuit of any of the things that you're talking about, especially if if.

17:26Well, we also have an emoluments clause. I mean, there are laws and rules that are supposed to prevent. Well, if it's possible to make these sticks, someone's going to do it with this guy because he's got so many enemies. I wonder whether the rules have to be not just enforced, but are going to ultimately have to be changed. Right. And the question is, is there going to be an appetite for that? That's what the and how would that work? That's what the ethics guy said, that we've got to look at the way everything is right now. And we've got to make sure that all these loops are closed. Well, look, we've had basic conversations.

17:57It goes back to the trading story. And we've not, you know, here we are sitting around saying that we're not investing in doing what we do. or the folks at the SEC don't invest in stocks. I bought like a couple of Bitcoin seven years ago, and you're still telling me that my opinion is based on me buying. And it isn't. I mean, look, the point is... Actually, I didn't say that. I sold 90 % of it below where it is now. The point is that most people at companies around the country have very significant restrictions on what they're able to do. If you are the CEO of Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan, you're limited about what you're able to do.

18:37If you we have lots of restrictions in most of corporate America, frankly, and lots of parts of the regulatory world as well. And yet, for whatever reason, we're saying the White House is different. Are you up to speed on the Ro Khanna stuff? I've been seeing this stuff on Twitter. I mean, he's how much is he worth? He's worth an extraordinary amount of money. I mean, it's through his wife's family, but a lot of trading. But there's a lot of trading. And the question is, how would you like to limit that? But I, by the way, I think we should try to try to limit those things or at least create systems that make you feel better about how those things work.

19:12I don't. By the way, we should have people who have wealth in Washington. Exactly, because you don't want people who are completely unsophisticated. I'm not suggesting that we don't want that. I'm just suggesting that there are rules. By the way, when Jake Clayton went to the SEC, you know, his his his wife had worked at Goldman Sachs. Stop working at Goldman Sachs. I mean, I'm saying cheese will be next. Coming up on Squawk Pod, Palantir is teaming up with NVIDIA. And Palantir CEO Alex Karp is fired up about the way technology works right here at home. You sound pretty angry. No, this is the voice of American business that is being channeled through me.

19:53And I'm telling you, it is absolutely a problem for this country. It's the type of conversation you'll only hear on Squawk Box and the kind of passion you'll only hear from Alex Karp. And I'll tell you, we're off camera now? No, we're still going. Stay with us through this quick break.

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21:00This is Squawk Pod from CNBC. Here's Andrew Ross Sorkin. Palantir expanding its partnership with NVIDIA to build custom AI systems for the U.S. government. That stock shooting up. It's up again this morning, up almost 6 % this week. And joining us right now exclusively at the table, Alex Carr, Palantir's co-founder and CEO in CNBC's Sima Modi, who covers Palantir joins us. And tell us about the deal with NVIDIA. There's so many things I think we all want to talk about. But let's get to the NVIDIA deal first. Because I have so much respect for NVIDIA and Jensen Wong, I'm going to try to keep this more adult than I usually do.

21:39But the truth is, if you want to know how this came together, from my perspective, there are a lot of technical issues. Who controls the models? Who controls the weights? Who controls the value of your business? But, you know, we're sitting on critical infrastructure across America, Ukraine, Israel. Everyone who uses LLMs on the battlefield runs on top of our ontology. And our clients are just, to say they're unhappy with the Frontier Labs is to say I'm welcome at the Berkeley faculty. It's like there's just a level of discomfort and loss of trust that also made it really, really. Okay, unpack that.

22:19What do you mean by that? Well, you have, okay, so when you're using large language models, they are, it's like, at this point, everyone technical realizes they're like a critical resource to make them valuable in an enterprise like battlefield context or regulated context or manufacturing. You have to have what's called an application layer. We have this thing called ontology that now everyone's copying. But de facto, it takes a large language model. It makes it safe and useful and precise. So safe because it doesn't touch your unlearned data. Safe because it prevents the large language model from caching your data and replicating your business.

22:55Safe because it doesn't transfer your IP of how to fight secret data, top secret data, or in a clinical context. So the general way these things were sold, and again, these people are, Sam and Dario, there's nothing more fun than debating Dario in private. So I'm not throwing shade at them. But something has gone completely wrong. And the basic view among enterprises in this country is I'm going to chillax and waste my time with tokens. I'm going to get no value and they're going to get my IP. That sounds like shade. OK. And not to shade. It sounds like you're saying these. No, no, no. This is reporting.

23:34OK. And this is reporting that I've I've literally against my own interest called these like I'm profiting from this. Right. So the reality is you may not like us at my former school, Haverford. or Berkeley, but enterprises in this country trust and love us, especially ones that are involved in critical infrastructure, both public and private. Okay, so I want for those countries, we're coming up to July 4th, I want for us and our friends across the globe to have the very best tech resources. In fact, the whole secret of Palantir is the forward deployed model, the products that have been five years ahead.

24:13You know, you've been with me for a long time. Everyone said FDEs were services. They said, we don't even know what an ontology is. That's the only thing people talk about now. The secret was we delivered the best things for the warfighters. Those warfighters have serious trust issues. But it's not just the war vis-a-vis Frontier Labs. Then you have my enterprises in the private sector who have the same issues. They're like, why would they get access to my data if they're going to build my alpha? Why wouldn't I control the weights? And that's where you get this partnership. What aligns me with NVIDIA, and I think is what the technical customers want, which is control over their compute, their models, their data stack, and their alpha.

25:00They want to know they own the means of production. It's not being transferred to someone else. They're not interested in some fake deploy co that somehow is deploying tokens that transfers the alpha to a third party. And the jig is up. And so we have to figure out a way. Our products are agnostic. We now sell a product to customers that allows you to switch from model to model. And we're completely agnostic. But we need to rebuild trust. And that trust is going to happen where everyone gets to ask and answer basic questions. Who owns the data? Where is it cached? Are the prompts secure? Is this being transferred to you?