Palantir, the AI giant that preaches US dominance
"We want and need this country to be the strongest, most important country in the world," Alex Karp, Palantir's CEO, recently declared at a client conference in Palo Alto, California, where AFP was the only media outlet present.
In armed conflicts -- most notably in Ukraine -- Palantir's tools help evaluate potential targets in real-time, using multiple sources, including biometric data and intercepted phone calls.
"I'm super proud of... what we do to protect our soldiers... (using our AI) to kill our enemies and scare them, because they know they will be killed," the graying, curly-haired billionaire continued, wearing a tight white T-shirt.
Washington has been filling Palantir's coffers.
In the first quarter, the company received $373 million from the US government -- a 45 percent jump from the previous year -- and it's not all miltary spending.
This spring, federal immigration authorities (ICE) awarded the company a $30 million contract to develop a new platform for tracking deportations and visa overstays.
'Like a drug'
The company then secured an investment of nearly $800 million from the US military, adding to the $480 million contract signed in May 2024 for its AI platform supporting the Pentagon's "Project Maven" target identification program.
This marked Palantir's first billion-dollar contract, elevating it alongside government contracting stalwarts like Microsoft and Amazon's AWS.
However, financial results "are not and will never be the ultimate measure of the value, broadly defined, of our business," Karp wrote in his letter to shareholders in early May, where he tossed in quotes from Saint Augustine, the Bible and Richard Nixon.
"We have grander and more idiosyncratic aims."
Palantir was founded in 2003 by Peter Thiel -- Silicon Valley's preeminent conservative -- Karp, and others with CIA backing.
The company takes its name from the magical seeing stones in Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings."
"Young people would say we're like pure drugs -- very expensive, highly sought after... that make you stronger and better," Karp boasted on stage.
Palantir's expanding footprint at the highest levels of government has raised eyebrows.
Several members of the Trump administration's "DOGE" cost-cutting commission, originally headed by Elon Musk, came from the company.
Recent reports from The New York Times, Wired, and CNN have detailed secret government projects to create, with Palantir's help, a central database combining data from different federal agencies.
'Deeply proud'
This development has created "a lot of concerns about how that information might be used," warned Elizabeth Laird from the Center for Democracy & Technology.
Palantir maintains it isn't building "surveillance technology" or a "central database on Americans."
Unlike most traditional Silicon Valley companies that have kept military projects discreet, Palantir now embraces its defense work openly.
Sasha Spivak, director of strategy, said that when she joined Palantir ten years ago, the company kept its sense of purpose behind closed doors.
"Today we're not ashamed, we're not afraid, and we're deeply proud of what we do and our clients," said Spivak.
Some employee groups are pushing back. In early May, 13 former Palantir employees published a letter accusing tech giants of helping to "normalize authoritarianism under the cover of a 'revolution' led by oligarchs."
They argue that by supporting the Trump administration and DOGE, Palantir has betrayed its stated values of ethics, transparency, and defending democracy.
"When I joined the company... there were many smart, motivated people -- that's pretty rare," said one of the letter's signatories, who wishes to remain anonymous, for fear of reprisal.
After months of seeking management explanations about Palantir's collaboration with Israel and ICE, several of these employees resigned.
"They said, 'We're a company that's very responsive to employees,' but people asking about Israel were quickly shut down and told, 'That's what we do -- if you don't like it, you can leave,'" the former staffer recalled.
Jeremy David, co-director of the Health division, plays down the controversies.
"My daily life is more about nurses and doctors who often hate us at first and are very grateful at the end," he told AFP at the conference.
On stage, Joe Bonanno, head of data analysis at Citibank, celebrated how one operation that previously required "nine days and sometimes 50 people" now "takes just a few minutes for one person."
"Like I said, and like Alex said, I came to dominate, crush and annihilate. So if you're JPMorgan, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, sorry," he concluded with a broad smile.
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