US Tech Investor and Podcaster Jason Calacanis: Fentanyl is a Chemical Weapon
US tech investor and podcaster Jason Calacanis expressed support on social media for Palantir co-founder and CEO Alex Karp's previous statements about fentanyl, stating that Karp is "absolutely correct"—if the elite were dying from fentanyl, the US government would have already launched military strikes against those involved in its production and trafficking.
This statement originates from Karp's comments during Palantir's Q3 2025 earnings call, where he said, "If 60,000 Yale graduates were dying from fentanyl instead of 60,000 working-class individuals, we would be dropping nuclear bombs on the source." He also stated, "Palantir stands with ordinary Americans because all the sympathy is given to the elite," and remarked that "open borders mean ordinary poor Americans earn less," while publicly endorsing the Trump administration's airstrikes on drug trafficking boats and expanded border enforcement actions.
In this tweet, Jason escalated his rhetoric further: he distinguished fentanyl from other "recreational drugs" like marijuana, alcohol, and psychedelics, stating that the latter "should be regulated and decriminalized," but fentanyl "makes heroin seem mild" and should be classified as a "chemical weapon." He suggested that it is reasonable to discuss imposing the death penalty on traffickers, even "waging war" for this cause, emphasizing a comparison—this month, the number of deaths from fentanyl has already surpassed the number of victims from 9/11.
Public data supports this comparison: in the 12 months leading up to January 2026, the number of drug overdose deaths in the US was approximately 69,147, averaging about 190 per day, or about 5,700 per month, indeed higher than the total number of casualties from 9/11, which was about 2,977. However, this figure has decreased by 13.2% compared to the previous year, with the peak in 2022 reaching 107,941. Analysts generally attribute this decline to China's restrictions on the export of fentanyl precursor chemicals to Mexican drug cartels, rather than substantial improvements in addiction treatment or prevention policies.
Karp holds a BA in Philosophy from Haverford College, a JD from Stanford Law School, and a PhD in Social Theory from Frankfurt University. He co-founded Palantir in 2003 with Peter Thiel and others, and as of 2025, has a net worth exceeding $18 billion, being named one of TIME magazine's 100 most influential people of the year.
It is noteworthy that Palantir itself is one of the direct commercial beneficiaries of the expansion of border and anti-drug enforcement. Public contract data shows that of Palantir's total revenue of $4.48 billion for FY 2025, approximately 41% (nearly $2 billion) comes from US government orders; contracts with the Department of Homeland Security exceed $320 million, including a $30 million contract for the "ImmigrationOS" immigration monitoring platform obtained in April 2025, and the ELITE system used for mapping deportation targets and generating personal profiles. The Department of Defense contracts are even larger, including an agreement for an Army software data platform worth up to $10 billion. This means that the policy direction that classifies fentanyl and border issues as "war-level threats" will objectively further expand government procurement needs for data and surveillance technology suppliers like Palantir.
Jason Calacanis is a co-host of the "All-In" podcast (alongside Chamath Palihapitiya, David Sacks, and David Friedberg) and is known in Silicon Valley for his early $25,000 investment in Uber, which appreciated to about $100 million by 2017.
Source: Public Information
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Karp's statement linking "differential treatment of civilian deaths" to military responses is not an isolated incident. During the Q3 2025 earnings call, he used nearly identical wording—"If 60,000 Yale graduates were dying instead of working-class individuals, we would directly drop nuclear bombs"—to tie class issues to national security concerns. In the same call, he publicly endorsed airstrikes on drug trafficking boats and expanded militarized border enforcement. This is not the first time he has used extreme analogies to generate discussion: he previously suggested "spraying fentanyl urine on analysts trying to undermine the company with drones," maintaining media exposure through controversial statements. This persona of a "tech executive and ideological provocateur" is highly similar to that of Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel in the right-wing political sphere over the years.
The real capital path lies behind these statements—41% of Palantir's $4.48 billion revenue for FY 2025 comes from US government orders (about $2 billion), with contracts from the Department of Homeland Security exceeding $320 million, including the ImmigrationOS and ELITE systems for immigration enforcement, while the Department of Defense contracts reach up to $10 billion for Army software platform agreements. The stronger the narrative framing fentanyl, illegal immigration, and border security as "war-level threats," the easier it becomes to provide political legitimacy for expanding government procurement budgets for border monitoring, military data systems, etc.—this is a clear capital path from "narrative framing" directly to "government orders."
This business logic of "weaponizing social issues and then having the company's technology solutions meet the demand" is historically most akin to the explosive growth of the homeland security industry after 9/11—at that time, contractors like Booz Allen and Raytheon leveraged the "War on Terror" narrative to secure hundreds of billions of dollars in government contracts over a decade, while Palantir itself was one of the companies born from the reform of the US intelligence system post-9/11, with its founding team having deep ties to the CIA's venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel. The current industry is in a "new round of government tech contract expansion driven by border security and anti-drug narratives," highly analogous to the counter-terrorism industry cycle two decades ago, with the only difference being that the threat target has shifted from "terrorism" to "fentanyl and illegal immigration."
This essentially represents capital concentration driven by regulatory changes: by extreme public discourse, redefining issues that originally belonged to public health and judicial domains (substance abuse) as national security and military issues, thus redirecting budget and policy resources from the "treatment and social security" system to the "monitoring and military strike" system. Mechanistically, this redefinition is effective because national security issues inherently have higher budget priority and less scrutiny resistance—once fentanyl is classified as a "chemical weapon" rather than a "public health crisis," corresponding government procurement can bypass conventional medical budget approval processes and directly enter defense and intelligence budget channels, which are precisely the main sources of revenue for companies like Palantir.
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
- Whoever defines the issue as war first gets the war budget.
- Class determines whether the same death can be called a "weapon."
- Ideology is free; government contracts are not.