Trump Taps Palantir to Create Master Database on Every American
The Trump administration is collecting data on all Americans, and they are enlisting the data analysis company Palantir to do it.
The New York Times reports that President Trump has enlisted the firm, founded by far-right billionaire Peter Thiel, to carry out his March executive order instructing government agencies to share data with each other. The order has increased fears that the government is putting together a database to wield surveillance powers over the American public.
Since then, the administration has been very quiet about these efforts, increasing suspicion. Meanwhile, Palantir has taken more than $113 million in government spending since Trump took office, from both existing contracts and new ones with the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security. That number is expected to grow, especially considering that the firm just won a new $795 million contract with the DoD last week.
Palantir is speaking with various other agencies across the federal government, including the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service, about buying its technology, according to the Times. Palantir's Foundry tool, which analyzes and organizes data, is already being used at DHS, the Department of Health and Human Services, and at least two other agencies, allowing the White House to compile data from different places.
The administration's efforts to compile data began under Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency initiative, which sought Americans' personal data from multiple agencies including the IRS, SSA, Selective Service, Medicare, and many others. In some cases, court orders hindered these efforts, but not all of them.
Thiel has multiple ties to DOGE, both through Musk and through many of his former employees working for the effort or taking other jobs in the Trump administration. And this data collection effort could give him, Musk, and Trump unprecedented power over Americans, with the president being better able to punish his critics and target immigrants.
Privacy advocates, student unions, and labor rights organizations are among those who have sued to stop Trump's data collection efforts. Palantir's involvement also gives a powerful tech company access to this data, and its CEO, Alex Karp, doesn't exactly have a benign agenda, hoping to cash in on American techno-militarism. Musk, too, has plans for government data, using his AI, Grok, to analyze it. Will anyone be able to stop Trump and these tech oligarchs?
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