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 ...
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