Alex Karp wants your children to go to war. He is very passionate about this. He has published a whole book about it — The Technological Republic — which is the kind of title that tells you immediately this guy has never had to parallel park, do his own laundry, or explain to a draft board why his knees don’t work.

He and his co-author slapped together a 22-point manifesto, dropped it on X on a Sunday like a flaming bag of dog poop on the nation’s doorstep, and among those 22 radiant points of visionary insight was a crystal-clear call: universal national service. A draft. The whole deal. Everyone goes. Everyone shares the risk.

Everyone, that is, except Palantir Technologies, which paid:

Exactly zero dollars — none, zip, goose egg, the big donut, not a thin dime — in federal income taxes in 2025, despite reporting a cool $1.5 billion in U.S. income.

They used a provision in something actually, genuinely, sincerely called the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” — which sounds like the title of a Schoolhouse Rock episode written by a defense contractor — to deduct their research expenses down to approximately nothing. So your kids can share in the risk and the cost, and Palantir will share in the profits.

That’s the deal. That’s the manifesto. Does this seem fair to you? Because Alex Karp has a ponytail and a philosophy degree and he thinks it’s extremely fair.

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