# Palantir cofounder to the doomers: relax

> As AI lab leaders warn of catastrophe, Joe Lonsdale says the grown-ups have it handled.
- Title: Palantir cofounder to the doomers: relax · Business Insider
- Summary: As AI lab leaders warn of catastrophe, Joe Lonsdale says the grown-ups have it handled. The loudest reassurance about AI safety is coming from someone with…
- Keywords: ai safety, palantir, joe lonsdale, anthropic, tech politics, business, technology, cofounder, doomers, relax, Business Insider
- Source: Business Insider — https://businessinsider.com/palantir-cofounder-joe-lonsdale-ai-threat-risks-safety-2026-9
- Author: Truman Dickerson
- Published: 2026-09-13T17:10:40.587+00:00
- Read time: 1 min
- Topics: ai safety, palantir, joe lonsdale, anthropic, tech politics, business, technology
## Everything's fine, apparently
In a Saturday X post, Palantir cofounder Joe Lonsdale waved off warnings that advanced AI could cause mass human extinction. His pitch: stop scaring people.

> The world is going to be alright, guys.
## An engineer walks out
Anthropic engineer Jacob Coxon quit this week with a blunt parting shot at frontier labs, saying the industry is betting human lives on its own speed.

> gambling with our lives
## Anthropic's CEO wants brakes
Dario Amodei warned in a blog post that AI swarms could soon take over the whole internet, and called for tougher safety rules and a coordinated global slowdown.
## The rest of the field agrees
Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Demis Hassabis and Clement Delangue all backed Amodei. Lonsdale stands nearly alone among tech leaders in saying nothing is wrong.
## Contrarian by habit
Lonsdale cofounded the University of Austin around anti-cancel-culture principles. He told Business Insider in 2017 that disagreeing with the crowd is the point.

> I've always relished standing out from the crowd, standing up and disagreeing with everyone.
## The race argument wins
Trump calls AI warnings things that won't happen, framing the whole question as a contest with China. Palantir, meanwhile, grew revenue 93% year over year selling AI to governments.

> Whoever wins with AI wins.
## Key takeaway

The loudest reassurance about AI safety is coming from someone with no seat at the frontier labs, while the people building the systems are the ones asking for brakes.