What is Palantir?

Palantir Technologies Inc., founded in 2003 and headquartered in Colorado, is a data and analytics company serving the agendas of government agencies, militaries, and corporations. Co-founders are Peter Thiel, Stephen Cohen, Joe Lonsdale, Alex Karp, and Nathan Gettings.

"CEO of Palantir Technologies Alex Karp called the defense and data behemoth "the first company to be completely anti-woke" during an earnings call on Monday [Nov 3, 2025].

Karp lauded those who work for Palantir as supporting free speech and "fighting for the right side of what should work in this country — meritocracy, lethal technology."

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"We power ICE," Karp said on Monday. "We've supported Israel. Okay, these are very controversial. I don't know why this is all controversial, but many people find that controversial."

On the earnings call, Karp said he makes "sure Palantir stays as tribal and cultish and unique as it was 20 years ago" by recruiting "the right people."

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In his shareholder letter, Karp also preached a "return to a shared national experience" and an "embrace of a common identity."

"It is and was a mistake to casually proclaim the equality of all cultures and cultural values," he wrote, without expounding upon which cultures he was referring to. "Some have proven to be wondrous and generative. Others destructive and deeply regressive. And an even greater mistake is to believe that we could or should convert the world to our way of living."

— Julia Hornstein, Palantir CEO Alex Karp calls his company the first to be 'completely anti-woke', Business Insider, Nov 3, 2025

Robert Reich called it "the most dangerous corporation in America," as "billions of your tax dollars" go to it and it "may put your most basic freedoms at risk." (Dec 2, 2025)

Super interesting reporting on Palantir‘s efforts to be used in Swiss governmental services and the military. They decided against it, because they worried Palantir was giving information to CIA and NSA and feared a loss of national sovereignty. www.republik.ch/2025/12/08/w...

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— Ulrike Franke (@rikefranke.bsky.social) December 11, 2025 at 11:30 AM

‘ELITE’: The Palantir App ICE Uses to Find Neighborhoods to Raid. Internal ICE material and testimony from an official obtained by 404 Media provides the clearest link yet between the technological infrastructure Palantir is building for ICE and the agency’s activities on the ground. Joseph Cox, 404 Media,·Jan 15, 2026

Getting off US tech: a guide I’m in the process of dropping US tech services. Here’s how I did it, and options you should consider., Paris Marx, July 18, 2025

404 Media, Jan 30, 2026:

"Earlier this month we revealed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is using a Palantir tool called ELITE to decide which neighborhoods to raid. The tool lets ICE populate a map with potential deportation targets, bring up dossiers on each person, and view an address “confidence score” based on data sourced from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and other government agencies. This is according to a user guide for ELITE 404 Media obtained. 404 Media is now publishing a version of that user guide so people can read it for themselves."

"ICE runs on corporate power, and at the center of that system sits Amazon. Through Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon provides the digital backbone that allows ICE and the Department of Homeland Security to surveil, track, and target immigrant communities at a massive scale.

ICE relies on Amazon’s cloud to compile and analyze enormous amounts of personal information. Immigration records, home addresses, family relationships, phone data, and location histories. All of it is pulled together, processed, and weaponized to carry out arrests and deportations. Without AWS, this level of surveillance simply does not exist.

Amazon’s technology is directly tied to Palantir, one of ICE’s most notorious tools. Built on AWS, ICE fuses immigration data with DMV records, license plate scans, utility data, social media activity, and commercial databases. It turns everyday life into a surveillance map and immigrant communities into targets.

Amazon knows exactly what its technology is used for. It profits anyway. That is why workers, organizers, and communities are demanding that Amazon cut ties with ICE and refuse to power surveillance, family separation, and deportation any longer."

— National Campaign for Justice (a project of Just Strategy), email sent 8 Feb 2026