Ousted Ukraine Defense Minister Fedorov Launches Arms-Tech Startup With Palantir's Alex Karp as First Investor

Mykhailo Fedorov spent six months running Ukraine's defense ministry before getting pushed out in July. Now he's building a company, and Palantir CEO Alex Karp is putting money behind it.

Fedorov announced the venture on Tuesday, September 1, according to the Kyiv Independent and Kyiv Post. He and Karp met the day before, August 31, at Palantir's office in Washington, D.C., to formalize the arrangement.

"During the full-scale war, our team gained unique experience working with defense technologies in Ukraine and seeing firsthand how technology is transforming modern warfare," Fedorov said in a press release cited by the Kyiv Independent. "Now we want to use this experience to build technologies that will strengthen Ukraine, help our allies, and ultimately make the world safer."

Karp, in a joint video, called the future company potentially "defining for the world." No name for the company has been announced. No funding total has been disclosed. Fedorov said only that more details are coming.

What we actually know

According to Kyiv Post, Fedorov identified three technology areas the new firm will target: battlefield robotics, low-cost AI-guided missiles, and jet-powered interceptor drones. That builds directly on his ministry work, where Ukraine leaned hard on ground robotic systems, logistics, and evacuation missions, more than 50,000 of them by June 9 according to Ukraine's Ministry of Defense.

Fedorov isn't putting all his chips on one venture. Defense News reports he's also advising Italy's defense ministry, an invitation he accepted August 28, and is separately trying to raise a defense investment fund. In an interview with the Financial Times published August 30, Fedorov said he's offering to help develop drone capabilities for the U.S. in exchange for Patriot missile interceptors for Ukraine.

Why Fedorov left government

Fedorov was Ukraine's minister for digital transformation before taking over defense in January. Business Insider reports his push for rapid reform inside the armed forces created "significant friction with senior military leaders," and Fedorov specifically accused Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, then Ukraine's commander in chief, of blocking his initiatives. "Instead of figuring out how to defeat Russia asymmetrically, he figured out how to split the country," Fedorov said of Syrskyi.

Syrskyi publicly thanked Fedorov for his work after the split. Ukraine replaced Fedorov with Yevhenii Khmara and later replaced Syrskyi himself with Maj. Gen. Mykhailo Drapatyi.

One source in the mix frames it differently. A translated Chosun Ilbo item, carried via Ground News, describes Fedorov as Ukraine's "youngest defense minister, who splits with Zelenskyy," and frames his departure as a conflict with the president himself rather than with Syrskyi. That framing doesn't match the Business Insider, Defense News, or Kyiv Independent accounts, which all point to friction with military leadership, not Zelenskyy directly. No source here documents a personal rupture between Fedorov and Zelenskyy.

Karp's bigger bet on Ukraine, and on defense spending generally

This deal doesn't happen in a vacuum. Palantir posted 93% year-over-year revenue growth last quarter to $1.94 billion, according to Defense News and Ad-hoc-news, with U.S. commercial revenue up 149% to $764 million. Management raised full-year guidance to as much as $8.16 billion. The stock has climbed roughly 43-44% over the past 30 days even while sitting about 13% below its all-time high, and Palantir's market value has passed $440 billion, up nearly 28-fold since its 2020 listing.

Roughly half of Palantir's total revenue still comes from U.S. government contracts. Ad-hoc-news reports that, per The Register, Pentagon officials have prepared a memo authorizing military units to buy up to $243.9 million in Palantir services without competitive bidding through March 2027. That's an authorization, not a signed contract, but it's the kind of no-bid arrangement taxpayers should want scrutinized regardless of who the vendor is.

Karp has personal history here. He was among the first Western tech executives to visit Kyiv after Russia's 2022 invasion, and Palantir's Maven Smart System, Defense News reports, already runs Ukraine's Brave1 Dataroom, letting Ukrainian firms train AI target-detection systems on live combat data. Outgoing U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll told the Senate in May that Ukraine's Delta command system, which Fedorov backed as minister, is "absolutely incredible" compared to U.S. Army systems he called "compartmentalized, isolated and ineffective."

The fair question here

A reasonable skeptic would ask whether this looks too cozy: a former defense minister leaves office and immediately partners with the CEO of the same company already embedded across half a dozen Ukrainian government agencies and pulling in half its revenue from Washington. This raises questions about conflicts of interest, especially in a country at war where defense contracts carry life-and-death stakes.

But no investigation has been announced, no ethics complaint has been filed, and Fedorov holds no government office to trade on. Karp's relationship with Fedorov predates this venture by five years, according to Karp's own statement, built through Palantir's existing wartime work in Ukraine rather than through any special access Fedorov granted as minister.

What's unresolved is basic: the company has no name, no disclosed valuation, no product, and no timeline. Fedorov says a team, a transparent plan, and a first project are coming. Until then, this is a handshake and a press release, backed by the CEO of the world's fastest-growing major defense software company.