Ukraine's ousted defense minister is launching a defense tech company, with Palantir's CEO as first backer

Mykhailo Fedorov spent seven months trying to run Ukraine's defense ministry the way he used to run its digital transformation portfolio: short cycles, tech-driven delivery, radical reorganization. The military could not absorb the pace. He was pushed out in July. The company he is launching this week, with Palantir CEO Alex Karp as first lead investor, is what Fedorov was building while the institution was ejecting him.

Fedorov moved from Ukraine's Ministry of Digital Transformation to the defense ministry in January 2026, then out the door in July. At Digital Transformation, his style and the Silicon Valley vocabulary around it had become a recognizable feature of Ukraine's public-sector tech push. When President Volodymyr Zelensky moved him into the defense portfolio, the brief was to transplant that operating tempo: short feedback cycles, vendor iteration, KPI-style delivery tracking. Zelensky replaced him six months later with Yevhenii Khmara, per Business Insider's reporting on the launch.

During Fedorov's tenure the defense ministry oversaw a mid-range drone strike campaign that Business Insider characterized as devastating Russian logistics, alongside an expansion of deep-strike targeting of Russian military and industry sites behind the front line. That record is the credibility Fedorov leans on as a founder. It is also a team record inside a wartime institution, not a personal scorecard, a distinction that matters given how the friction with the general staff ended.

Fedorov went public with his criticism of then-commander-in-chief Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, accusing him of blocking his initiatives and warning that the standoff was splitting the country. Syrskyi's response was conciliatory: he thanked Fedorov and wished him continued success. Syrskyi was subsequently replaced himself, with a major general taking over the armed forces leadership, per the same Business Insider report. The personnel reshuffle did not stop with the defense minister.

The new company is described in Fedorov's launch materials as a venture developing defense technologies aimed at strengthening Ukraine and supporting its partners. Karp, in a video filmed at Palantir's Washington office, became the first named lead investor and endorsed the venture in language the Business Insider report quoted as describing the work as "defining for the world." Karp is naming the company. He is not refereeing the ouster, and the launch materials do not claim he is.

What the company will specifically build, how large the founding round is, and which other backers are in remain undisclosed. Fedorov's own framing is "more details to come." The launch is a watch item rather than a verdict: it is what a tech-native minister who collided with a wartime general staff does on the other side, with the most prominent American backer in defense tech writing the first check.