Alex Karp, CEO of the secretive data-mining startup Palantir Technologies, is slamming his Silicon Valley peers for taking a "loser" position on whether to work with government programs to keep the U.S. safe.
Recent opposition from tech companies to taking contracts with government defense agencies is "borderline craven," Karp told CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin on "Squawk Box" from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
"That is a loser position. It is not intelligible. It is not intelligible to the average person. It's academically not sustainable. And I am very happy we're not on that side of the debate," said Karp whose Palo Alto, California-based company provides services to the Defense Department, the CIA, and FBI.
Last year, for example, Alphabet's Google unit decided not to renew its contact for a Defense Department program known as Project Maven after an employee firestorm erupted with a petition urging CEO Sundar Pichai to keep Google out of the "business of war."
However, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has defended such public-private contracts, saying last year his company will continue to do business with government agencies and warned other tech companies about turning their backs. "If big tech companies are going to turn their back on the U.S. Department of Defense, this country is going to be in trouble," Bezos said in October.
Karp, who clearly agrees with Bezos, told CNBC, "Silicon Valley is creating micro-communities that break the consensus of larger society while simultaneously telling the average American I will not support your defense needs and then selling their products that are an adversary of America."
Palantir, which has reportedly been considering an initial public offering as soon as this year, was founded in 2004 by Karp and other ex-Stanford students including PayPal co-founder and outspoken venture capitalist Peter Thiel.
Palantir provides software that customers use to import volumes of disparate data, such as spreadsheets and images, into a central database where it can be analyzed and interpreted with maps and charts.
WATCH: Here's the full CNBC interview with Palantir CEO Alex Karp
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