The Most Confusing Jacket in America

Nothing about the Palantir chore coat makes any sense. Mine is a size small, though it’s so oversize that I look like a teen wearing a hand-me-down. Then there’s the color: a piercing blue that’s nearing the shade of an i Message bubble. The jacket is also the most comfortable and practical garment I own. It’s buttery soft and as heavy as a blanket, with three massive patch pockets that each can hold a paperback book. The coat’s plastic buttons—swirls of black and blue—are unlike any I have ever seen.The Palantir chore coat is made by the same Palantir named in homage to Lord of the Rings, the same Palantir that has developed a reputation as ruthlessly committed to any number of national-security imperatives, and, yes, the same Palantir that builds AI tools for the military and tracks migrants for ICE. The mysterious tech giant now also wants to sell you outerwear. Only a tiny Palantir logo is embroidered into the coat’s left breast pocket, but flip the coat inside out and you’ll find a message from Palantir’s CTO, Shyam Sankar, sewn into the lining. Ask yourself constantly, Am I winning? If the answer is yes, nothing else matters. Chaos is tolerable; pain is tolerable. The only thing that matters is to win.When the chore coat was announced in April, it became an instant grail for Palantir’s many devotees, who are drawn to the hard-core ethos of the CEO, Alex Karp (or “Daddy Karp,” as he’s sometimes known online). Palantir is proudly America First—Karp has said that his goal is “making America more lethal”—and sure enough, the company’s marketing emphasizes that the jacket is made in America with 100 percent American-grown cotton. The jacket also has been easy to mock. Here is a foray into fashion from a nearly $300 billion company that is automating warfare. People have dubbed the coat “the worst clothing release this year” and darkly wondered, “Is this the uniform that will be issued after we are all put in labor camps?” In a ranking of despicability, New York maga