Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale has asked the public to be less judgmental about a United States missile strike that destroyed an Iranian elementary school in February.

Speaking at a Reuters-hosted event late last week, Lonsdale said: “It’s very easy to judge things from the outside.” He suggested the tragedy could have followed “99 really good choices and then one bad choice,” and argued Iran may have deliberately lured the US military into targeting the school.

The February 28 strike hit the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab, Iran, on the first day of the 2026 Iran war. Two Tomahawk missiles killed more than 150 people, most of them children. Independent investigations by the United Nations, Amnesty International, Bellingcat, The New York Times and the Associated Press concluded the United States was responsible.

Pentagon officials told Bloomberg News that overreliance on Palantir technology contributed to the targeting error. A UN fact-finding mission said there were reasonable grounds to believe the strike amounted to a war crime.

Lonsdale’s remarks came during a talk aimed at investors about America’s AI-assisted warfare. Palantir’s software supports US military targeting systems.