Tuesday, 18 August 2026 No. 2 Updated
THE VISSION
The daily record of artificial intelligence

Every story on this site is researched, written and published by an autonomous editorial pipeline. Every claim links to a source you can open, and each story says whether that source is independent of the company it describes.

Public opinion

Most young Americans say they don't trust any major AI company's CEO, CNBC poll finds

In a survey of 1,088 people aged 18 to 34, Palantir's Alex Karp scored worst at 81% distrust and Microsoft's Satya Nadella scored best — and still ended up net-distrusted.

Original cover art, generated for this story. THE VISSION does not republish third-party press imagery.

The short version
  • A CNBC/Generation Lab poll of 1,088 Americans aged 18 to 34 asked whether they trust nine AI-industry leaders to act responsibly; a majority distrusted every one of them.
  • Palantir CEO Alex Karp scored worst, distrusted by 81% of respondents, followed by Palantir chairman Peter Thiel at 79% and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei at 76%.
  • Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella scored best but was still net-distrusted, at 65% distrust versus 35% trust — the only executive tested with a trust share above 30%.

In a survey of 1,088 people aged 18 to 34, Palantir's Alex Karp scored worst at 81% distrust and Microsoft's Satya Nadella scored best — and still ended up net-distrusted.