Palantir CEO Alex Karp buys a forest in Sweden the size of Liechtenstein
Palantir founder purchases large swath of forest in Sweden
Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir Technologies, has purchased 15,000 hectares (37,000 acres) of forest in Härjedalen, Sweden, for 235 million kronor ($22 million). The land, bought from paper company SCA AB through his newly registered company Cladonia Skog AB, is roughly the size of Liechtenstein. The deal became public only after local hunters received cancellation of their hunting leases, and local authorities were given no advance notice. Palantir provides services to Swedish defense and police, as well as NATO, at a time when European leaders are weighing reduced reliance on U.S. technology.
The purchase from paper company SCA AB became public when local hunters received cancellation of their lease to hunt on the property.
- Jabbles
Note that the red area on the map in the article is Härjedalen, which has an area of 11,405 km^2, 1.1M hectares, 2.8M acres.
The purchased forest (15k hectares, 37k acres) is therefore ~1.3% of the region.
- robin_reala
That’s a strange map in the article. It makes it looks like he’s bought all of Härjedalen, rather than two orders of magnitude less. It’s still a chunky piece of land, but it’s definitely not that big.
- dylanz
He's a huge cross country skier so he probably wants his own little playground
- spankalee
If you believe in global threats from AI, global warming, Russia and/or China, this probably isn't a bad place to build a bunker.
- sorenjan
I don't know exactly where the land is, but according to media it's south of Storsjö kapell [0]. There's plenty of fell there, and he can't just build whatever he wants even if he owns the land. When a billionaire says he spent $22 million to by it for recreation, I don't see a big reason to not believe him, there's not much else he can use it for.
It's not far from Funäsdalen which is a relatively popular ski resort [1], there are also hiking trails and similar [2].
The seller SCA is Europe's biggest private forest owner and owns 2.7 million hectares by the way.
[0] https://maps.app.goo.gl/hQp2Rw9tM6kWTuTdA
[1] https://funasdalen.se/en/winter/skiing/cross-country-skiing/