Palantir and Why You Should Know About It
Don't know who Peter Thiel or Alex Karp are? Don't know what Palantir is? Don't understand why they're slurping up US government defense department contracts? keep reading ↴
What is Palantir?
Palantir is an American software & technology company. Their primary source of income comes from contracts with the US government, most commonly with the Defense Department. Palantir is Silicon Valley-based and produces a variety of analytical software programs that interpret data into results and/or an interfaceable dashboard. Some of Palantir's unique traits are its software's ability to integrate with pre-existing systems and to analyze data in a user-friendly manner. Palantir uses AI to support its data analysis and management.
What does Palantir really sell and to whom?
Palantir has received over $1.3B from the Defense Department since 2009 for a number of services, including Vantage Data Analytics Platform, Maven (an AI-powered drone platform) and Titan (an "AI-defined vehicle").
Palantir has also worked with:
The CDC on Tiberius, a software that helps distribute vaccines, and other platforms that track outbreaks of food borne outbreaks, Ebola, anthrax, bacterial special pathogens.
ICE on ImmigrationOS, which leverages preexisting government data to "detect patterns, and flag individuals who meet certain criteria." Additionally, systems like FALCON and ICM have been used in large-scale workplace raids.
The New Orleans Police, on a predictive policing technology.
The Israeli Military on "support of war-related missions" in "addressing the current situation in Israel."
The Ukrainian Military, notably leveraging Starlink's broad and robust data transferring technology to provide real-time actionable intelligence from raw drone & satellite images. Palantir's CEO speaks about this as a digital kill chain.
The UK Government to integrate and manage sensitive NHS data, running the Federated Data Platform. Here's the No Palantir in NHS Toolkit.
Who is behind Palantir?
There are three key individuals behind Palantir
Peter Thiel (chairman) - the devil, funder of JD Vance's political career, destroyer of Gawker, former PayPal co-founder, and early investor in Facebook.
Alex Karp (CEO) - billionaire that looks like an evil doll of Taika Waititi. He backed Kamala Harris in the 2024 US elections. Hype over "Daddy Karp" on r/PTLR makes Palantir popular with memebrokers and daytrading communities
Stephen Cohen (president) - youngest of the trio at the ripe age of 43, Cohen is the the computer scientist behind early protypes, and continues his involvement in a managerial position.
Is this all somehow related to Trump?
Yes. Here are two individuals who are currently or formerly employed by both Palantir and the Trump Administration (or a MAGA politician).
Greg Barbaccia
Currently: United States Federal Chief Information Officer, Trump Administration, as of January 2025
Formerly: Lead the Intelligence and Investigations unit at Palantir. Spent 10 years at Palantir, starting in 2010 and shortly after he left the Army in 2008.
2. Macalagh Carr
Currently: Head of Global Policy at Palantir.
Formerly: Chief of Staff to Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (who is too much to get into here) for the short period of time that Kevin McCarthy was the 55th Speaker under Joe Biden (January 2023-October 2023)
Why is it significant?
In 2024, Palantir reported yearly U.S. commercial revenue of $214 million (64% increase from last year), while their U.S. government revenues rose to $343 million (45% increase). Palantir is making a lot of money selling a lot of technology that leverages and encourages the collection of data by the government and third parties. Many of the products Palantir sells intend on leveraging that data by making predictions about behavior, in order to make governments better at tracking their constituents, militaries better at waging war, and corporations better at getting into customers heads.