Palantir Technologies - IV of IV

Palantir is much beyond a technology story and is a story of security and defense. Counterterrorism and defense form the main part of Palantir’s business. Much of this work necessarily takes place out of public view. A number of military veterans work at Palantir. It personifies the new revolution in military affairs. Alex Karp and cofounder Peter Thiel are now fully embedded in the Trump White House system and are looking for more and more business.

Palantir's work is related to analyzing data from thousands of satellites and other sensors and making sense of that for military commanders. They are also creating a platform that will facilitate the mass deportation of 'illegal immigrants'. Palantir's power, fame and presence is not confined to America or Israel.  All of NATO has embraced it. Palantir's use of AI has been has been criticized as crossing the ethical boundaries, particularly as it works with military intelligence, immigration, etc., probably with not enough disclosure.

Shyam Shankar, Palantir Chief Technology Officer, is a Lieutenant Colonel US army reserve, commissioned in June 2025 to a new unit called the Executive Innovation Corps. He plays a key role in upgrading technologies, particularly AI, for the US armed forces. (Reserve army officers in the US can keep on doing the work that they are doing, but they are part of the army as officers, which means they have got the privileges like security clearances, etc. Chief Technology Officers of three big tech companies have been appointed as officers.)

There are more indications about how deeply embedded Palantir has now become in the security and defense structure in America. Jacob Helberg, ex-Palantir, has been appointed under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy and Environment. Gregory Barbaccia has been appointed federal CIO, Chief Information Officer, in the executive office of the president to lead US government's IT strategy.  He was in Palantir and was the head of intelligence and investigations. 

The brings us to the question of how the company got its name. Peter Thiel is a fan of The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. In the novel, a Palantir is a magical sphere. The person who looks into one can see things far away and communicate with someone who holds another Palantír. (The company management is fond of referring to employees as “hobbits”.) He named Palantir after the all-seeing crystal balls. His software and AI also are supposed to be all-seeing. 

In Tolkien’s work, we see both good and bad effects of the use of Palantíri. Only very powerful and capable beings were able to use these seeing stones. But even the very wise could be deceived by what they saw, and using a Palantir led to their downfall. It can be used to distort truth and present selective visions of reality. A kingdom used the Palantirí to facilitate communication and control across a vast territory. One of the story's villains, the wizard Saruman, used a Palantir to surveil his enemies. The Palantiri are a sinister symbol of hubris and a tool of manipulation. 

The Torment Nexus is an expression that refers to dystopian elements in science fiction that technologists pursue as practical goals. Dais Johnston of an online magazine Inverse has defined the Torment Nexus as "shorthand for something that backfired in fiction being unironically replicated in reality." Palantir Technologies is an example of the Torment Nexus. 

Peter Thiel is aware of the moral complexities involved in the use of Palantir in the novel but he seems to think his company is immune to them. Alex Karp indeed seems to take the issue of privacy protection seriously. But how can he ensure that his clients will do the same? How will he be able to ensure that the CEOs who come after him will have the same commitment to privacy protection that he seems to have? It seems inevitable that someone somewhere at some time will use the software for some unethical purposes. 

This has already happened. The company was implicated in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which Facebook data was surreptitiously used to try to manipulate millions of Americans into voting for Donald Trump in 2016. The investment bank JPMorganChase sought Palantir’s help for cybersecurity. Soon, though, the software was being used to surveil the bank’s own staff by a bank employee. When Trump launched his immigration crackdown, Palantir was accused of abetting racist and inhumane policies. That Thiel had been one of Trump’s most prominent supporters added to the furor.

Concerned about Palantir’s role in the second Trump administration, former employees of Palantir wrote a warning to their fellow tech workers in Silicon Valley. They recalled that in the epic novel, “the myth of the powerful seeing stones warned of great dangers when wielded by those without wisdom or a moral compass, as they could be used to distort truth and present selective visions of reality.”

Similarly, the Palantir employees warned that the “Palantir Technologies" platform grants immense power to its users, "helping control the data, decisions, and outcomes that determine the future of governments, businesses, and institutions — and by extension, all of us.”

Some of Palantir's critics like to portray the company almost as an all-seeing, all-controlling company. Palantir's supporters say the company is saving Western civilization from collapse. The Trump years exposed an uncomfortable truth: the company’s technology would be a powerful weapon in the hands of an authoritarian regime. In The Philosopher in the Valley, Michael Steinberger writes: 

Palantir was arguably the most interesting company in the world — and possibly also one of the most dangerous. Its technology had the potential to help shape the balance of power in the twenty-first century and to alter the relationship between the individual and the state. Palantir was a window into the panoptic future that had now arrived ...

Palantir Technologies - III of IV

A major thing that's happened in recent years is the advent of AI. Palantir quickly realized that there's going to be huge demand among corporations in incorporating AI functions into their operations and that Palantir software could play this sort of bridging function. It just turbocharged their business. A few years ago the stock was trading at about $10 a share. A few months ago, it topped $200 a share. Palantir's Board of directors awarded Alex Karp $1.1 billion in total compensation in 2020, making him the highest-paid CEO of a publicly traded company that year. 

There is a story which illustrates Alex Karp's aggressive style.  In early 2023, he announced that the company was launching a new AI product that "was under development". None of the engineers in his company knew that there was any such product. He knew that AI is going to be the next big thing so he just decided there will be a product and assumed the engineers will find a way of doing it. And they did. 

Although Alex Karp is very supportive of his employees, he speaks abrasively to outsiders. Trump-style, he taunts his critics and attacks the media. There's a quote from him in a Wall Street Journal story where he says, "we are sorry that our haters are disappointed, but there are more quarters to be disappointed and we are working on that too."  And he goes on to say to his shareholders to stop talking to all the haters.

Much of what the company does is completely benign. It's helping make businesses operate more efficiently. Palantir has also done a lot of good. It played an instrumental role in the COVID response and in the vaccine rollout. It was being used by the World Food Program when the pandemic began. Then there's been stuff that's very concerning. Now Karp's view of what it means to defend the West seems to have changed. For much of Palantir's history, defending the West meant defending liberal democracy, the rule of law.

In the beginning, his political views provided an intriguing contrast with Peter Thiel, who was a libertarian (and who later would gravitate to the far right). But in recent years he has moved closer to Thiel's view. Thiel has spoken very disparagingly of democracy. You don't now hear Karp nor from Palantir talk of defending liberal democracy. They talk about the West now as a cultural entity, a superior culture. 

Peter Thiel has been a long-time Trump supporter and is supposed to be the man behind the rise of JD Vance. Prior to entering politics, Vance had worked for Thiel’s Mithril Capital. When JD Vance contested for his campaign to be senator in Ohio, Peter Thiel contributed $15 million.  He and a lot of his key people are seen very often in the White House.  And many of them are now working either in White House or in Department of Defense.  

Thiel has said that he no longer believes that freedom (he means economic freedom) and democracy are compatible. He wrote, “Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of ‘capitalist democracy’ into an oxymoron.” (He later clarified that he didn’t think anyone should be disenfranchised, while simultaneously suggesting that voting isn’t productive.) He thinks of the West as a collection of countries bound by a shared Judeo-Christian heritage and by attachment in varying degrees to free enterprise.

Thiel has a habit of ignoring or doubting scientific facts that run counter to his worldview. (He even funded an online magazine that promoted creationism.) Thiel’s idea of “freedom” seems to consist of free markets and not much else. He thinks that markets should be free of any regulation. He is skeptical about the value of competition and believes that the most compelling start-ups are those that aim to achieve monopolistic dominance in niche markets. According to him, "Competition is for losers because it destroys profits. You can survive, but you'll never thrive.” 

He gave the example of disc drive manufacturing in the 1980s, which saw repeated advancements every two years, but by different companies. “It had great benefit to consumers, but it didn’t actually help the people who started these companies,” he said. Companies needed not only to have “a huge breakthrough” at the beginning to establish their dominance but also to ensure they had the “last breakthrough” to maintain it, such as by “improving on it at a quick enough pace that no one can ever catch up - that’s great for society. It’s actually not that good for your business.”

Thiel said that an Antichrist would exploit fears of the apocalypse — for example due to nuclear armageddeon, climate change or the threat posed by AI — to control a "frightened population.". The Antichrist is a deceptive figure in Christian theology who opposes Christ and embodies ultimate evil. Thiel’s overall definition of the Antichrist “is that of an evil king or tyrant or anti-messiah who appears in the end times”. He identifies the Antichrist with anyone or any institution that he dislikes – from environmental activist Greta Thunberg to governmental attempts to regulate artificial intelligence. He labeled AI safety researchers who call for strict regulation as potential agents of the Antichrist.

In an interview to the NYT, he talked about his fears of an Antichrist taking over the world. The interviewer asked him if he doesn’t think that the Antichrist who he is so worried about would use the the tools that his company Palantir is creating to take over the world; that without such tools, such a takeover would not be possible. Thiel didn’t have a good answer. 

Thiel and Karp, are strong supporters of Israel. After 7th of October 2023, they took a plane load of Palantir top staff to Tel Aviv in solidarity. And then they faced a big pushback from many quarters that their platforms was being used by the Israeli military.  How did they respond? They decided to hold their next board meeting in Tel Aviv.