Tech CEOs Overwhelmingly Distrusted by Young: Study

A CNBC and Generation Lab study of 18- to 34-year-olds found that a majority distrust nine major AI industry leaders, with Palantir CEO Alex Karp facing the highest distrust at 81%, followed by Palantir Chairman Peter Thiel at 79%, and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman each at about 75%. The survey also found that 45% of respondents believe AI's impact on their careers will be negative, and nearly 80% expressed negative sentiment about the U.S. economy.

Would you believe me if I said the young really, really, really, don’t trust tech CEOs? Well get ready to pick your jaw up off the floor, because a new study from CNBC and the Generation Lab says it’s true. In recent years, CNBC has worked a lot with this guy named Cyrus Beschloss who co-founded the Generation Lab https://www.generationlab.org/ It’s a DC research company . CNBC hosts will sometimes have Beschloss on as a talking head, and his job, as a fun little interruption of the regular CNBC program, will be to explain what in the world the youngs think about all this, and he’ll say what we all know: The youngs hate all this A lot Here’s Beschloss communicating this a year ago: And a few days ago, CNBC and the Generation Lab did it again. They released a new study of 18- 34-year-olds https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/13/cnbc-poll-half-of-those-18-to-34-view-democratic-socialism-positively.html , and, well: When given the names of nine key people in the AI industry and asked whether they trust each leader to act responsibly on AI, in each case a majority of respondents said they don’t. By the numbers: - Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella: about 65% distrusted - Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg: about 70% distrusted - Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang: about 70% distrusted - SpaceX CEO Elon Musk: about 70% distrusted - Alphabet/Google CEO Sundar Pichai: about 75% distrusted - Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei: about 75% distrusted - OpenAI CEO Sam Altman: about 75% distrusted - Palantir Chairman Peter Thiel and former CEO of PayPal : about 79% distrusted - Palantir CEO Alex Karp: about 81% distrusted And while we’re on the subject, 45% of respondents think AI’s impact on their careers will be negative, while only 10% believe its impact will be positive. There are more shocking findings from the Generation Lab’s survey. Nearly 80% expressed negative sentiment about the U.S. economy. 50% said that in the future, the economy “will get worse,” while 22% thought it “will get better.” Meanwhile, 46% hold a “favorable” or a “very favorable” view of democratic socialism, as opposed to 23% who have a “somewhat unfavorable” or “very unfavorable” view.