Palantir’s data-mining tools are used by spies and the military. Are they now being turned on Americans?
What does Palantir do?
Named after the mystical seeing stones in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, the secretive tech firm sells software that can crunch colossal troves of data. Depending on the application, that might include GPS data, text messages, social media profiles, legal filings, phone records, and thousands of other information points, which it distills into charts, maps, and other forms of intelligence. Palantir’s specialty is detecting connections and patterns: “the finding of hidden things,” as CEO Alex Karp puts it. The company was launched in 2003 by Peter Thiel, a tech billionaire and major Trump donor, and Karp, a self-described neo-Marxist with a philosophy Ph.D., and seeded with $2 million from the CIA. The intelligence agency used Palantir’s software to track terrorists after 9/11—it is widely believed to have helped the U.S. locate and kill Osama bin Laden—and the firm has helped Ukraine’s military identify Russian targets, Los Angeles police track crime patterns, and JPMorgan Chase combat cyberfraud. But most of Palantir’s work is for the U.S. government, and business is booming. Since President Trump’s January inauguration, it has won more than $900 million in federal contracts, and its share price has more than doubled. “Palantir is on fire,” Karp told a May earnings call.
Which agencies work with the company?
Palantir’s tools are used across many agencies for a wide range of purposes. It has helped the CDC track disease outbreaks, the IRS sniff out tax cheats, the FDA monitor supply chains, and the Department of Homeland Security chase down drug traffickers. Most controversially, during the first Trump administration it helped Homeland Security track undocumented migrants, prompting pushback from employees and protests at Palantir’s Palo Alto and Manhattan offices. In April, CNN and Wired reported that Palantir engineers were helping build a master database that will draw data from across federal agencies—including the IRS, Social Security Administration, and Health and Human Services—to target undocumented immigrants. The firm is “helping build the infrastructure of the police state,” charged tech investor Paul Graham. Palantir’s biggest government client, though, is the Defense Department, with whom it has a $1.3 billion contract running through 2029.
How does the military use its tech?
In Palantir’s early years, the Marine Corps deployed its software in Afghanistan to better predict the locations of roadside bombs and potential insurgent ambushes. The company is now helping the Pentagon develop the Maven Smart System, which uses AI to analyze satellite imagery, drone footage, radar feeds, ground reports, and other data to present commanders with battlefield options. The Pentagon has already used the technology to identify airstrike targets in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq. Palantir has also worked closely with the Ukrainian military, embedding engineers with troops, and recently signed a $91 million deal with Britain’s Defense Ministry. “They are the AI arms dealer of the 21st century,” said Jacob Helberg, a national security expert and outside adviser to Karp. Palantir’s defense work, especially the use of its software by Israel in Gaza, has drawn condemnation from inside and outside the company.
How has Palantir responded?
Karp, who’s called himself a “progressive warrior,” acknowledges that using AI-driven algorithms to aid killing is “morally complex.” But he believes that in a world full of malevolent forces bent on America’s destruction, survival depends on leveraging our technological advantages and that tech firms must aid that effort. “A lot of this does come down to, Do you think America is a beacon of good or not?” he said. Palantir aims to help “power the West to its obvious, innate superiority” and “bring violence and death to our enemies.” When it comes to the other key charge leveled at Palantir—that its software is being put to nefarious ends by the government—Karp insists his company can’t dictate how its tools are used. But alarm spiked in May, when The New York Times reported that the Trump administration had tapped the firm to compile Americans’ personal data.
What kind of information?
The federal government has copious data on U.S. citizens, ranging from incomes and student debts to criminal histories, charitable contributions, and medical claims. Such data is currently siloed across agencies. But the Times reported that Trump, who in March signed an executive order directing agencies to remove “unnecessary barriers” to data consolidation, had drafted Palantir to build a centralized database that pulls all that disparate information together.
Why is there alarm over a centralized database?
Privacy advocates say that this library of information could be weaponized by the government. Officials could access and release embarrassing details about critics’ finances and health conditions, for example, or terminate benefits they receive. “The creation of a monster uniform database,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), is “an invitation to fraud and political retaliation against the people.” It’s not just Democrats who are raising warnings. Such data consolidation is “a power that history says will eventually be abused,” said Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio). Palantir denies it is building a master database or “enabling mass surveillance” of citizens. But even onetime insiders are troubled by the company’s growing power. In May, 13 ex-Palantir engineers signed a letter saying the firm’s leadership had “abandoned its founding ideals” and become complicit in “normalizing authoritarianism.” They cited the crystal-ball-like “seeing stones” that gave Palantir its name. These magical artifacts were not necessarily a force for good, they noted, but presented “great dangers when wielded by those without wisdom or a moral compass.”
Palantir’s unlikely CEO
After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the first Western CEO to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was a wiry-haired intellectual who practices tai chi and holds a doctorate in neoclassical social theory. That was Palantir’s Karp, who told Zelensky he could help “David to beat a modern-day Goliath.” If Zelensky found Karp an unlikely defense contractor, he wasn’t alone; “batshit crazy” is how Karp recently summed up some investors’ view of him. Raised outside Philadelphia by a far-left Jewish father and Black mother, the Kamala Harris donor is also an odd bedfellow for Peter Thiel. But when choosing a chief executive, Thiel turned to his former Stanford Law classmate, who had no tech or business experience. A self-described introvert, when not traveling Karp skis and shoots guns at his cabin in rural New Hampshire, tended by a staff and team of bodyguards. He says his defense work has made him a “pariah” in Silicon Valley but dismisses what he calls “woke, pagan ideology.” He insists he wants “less war,” and the way to achieve that is to “scare the f--- out of our enemies.”
