Palantir's products are not Excel. Palantir's founders and executives are well aware of what their tools are designed for and what they enable, and they're proud of their role.

As far as I know, Microsoft executives don't brag about Excel being used to create a unified "kill chain" [1], nor do they market software intended for targeting for weapons of mass destruction [2], nor do they claim that their products are designed for use in lethal military operations [3].

As much as you'd like to hand-waive away their role, a war profiteer is a war profiteer. IBM also used to just make computers to manage supply chains in WW2; who they sold it to, the purposes it was used for, and why they sold it is still important. Based on interviews, Thiel and Karp are gleeful about their role in the military-industrial complex and embrace it [4], so likening their products to Excel is disingenuous at best.

[1] https://www.palantir.com/platforms/gotham/

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2026/mar/26/ai-got-the-blam...

[3] https://www.heise.de/en/news/Palantir-defends-its-role-in-th...

[4] https://futurism.com/future-society/palantir-ceo-war-crimes