France’s move on Tuesday to remove Palantir from its intelligence services is the latest sign of European concern with the US data mining firm – a company that has grown from a CIA-backed startup to one of the most powerful tech players in the Trump era.
– “The Lord of the Rings” –
Palantir was born in 2003 by the former founders of PayPal – known as the PayPal Mafia – in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
It introduced software that could analyze vast sets of intelligence data to flag threats — an idea adapted from PayPal’s fraud detection systems.
Peter Thiel, the conservative co-founder of PayPal, believed that better data sharing between agencies could have prevented 9/11 and built the company around a mission to “protect the West.”
The name came from the “seeing stones” of JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.
Other co-founders included Alex Karp — a Stanford Law School classmate of Thiel’s who became CEO despite having no engineering experience — as well as Joe Lonsdale, who espouses a fiercely pro-innovation agenda focused on preserving US national power.
– CIA to ICE –
In 2005, In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture arm, began investing in Palantir, strengthening its connection to the US national security universe. Palantir was quickly put to use by US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For two decades the company has worked in all administrations of both American political parties. According to the government tracking site usaspending.gov, Palantir has won more than $2.7 billion in defense contracts since 2008.
The company’s fortunes have risen as it closely aligns with President Donald Trump’s second term.
Palantir’s U.S. government revenue this year totaled $687 million in the first quarter, an 84 percent year-over-year increase, according to Karp’s letter to shareholders in May.
Its most high-profile military work is Project Maven – the Pentagon’s AI targeting system, which Palantir took over from Google in 2019 after the search giant abandoned it under pressure from its own staff.
The Maven contract has expanded greatly since then and has been used to help identify targets in recent operations, including the US-Israel war against Iran.
Palantir’s most contested work involves immigration.
The company has signed more than $81 million in contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) since January 2025.
Reports say ICE relies on a Palantir tool that mines the health agency’s data to identify people for deportation, prompting an outcry from rights groups.
– Philosopher Karp –
CEO Karp, who has a doctorate in philosophy from Germany, is Palantir’s showman — a regular at talk shows and conferences where he explains his vision for business and society, often publishing lengthy shareholder letters or “manifestos.”
He insists he’s bipartisan, though his rhetoric often veers into libertarian, anti-government slogans that could turn off a customer base that includes governments around the world.
Karp justifies Palantir’s role by arguing that the company helps Western governments reduce terrorism, counter dissent and strengthen democratic institutions.
Co-founder Lonsdale is much more strident in his defense of conservative values, regularly railing against “woke” culture and defending US supremacy against China and European regulators.
Thiel, the dominant figure in the conservative tech world, has branded those who would slow technology down as “legionaries of the Antichrist,” who he warns could usher in totalitarian global rule.
– Whose side are you on? –
Palantir’s strong support for America and anti-establishment rhetoric could backfire, with governments or lawmakers rethinking ties to the firm, particularly in France, Germany and Britain.
Foreign customers are left wondering whether Palantir will be with them or the White House “when they have to make tough decisions,” said Aalok Mehta, director of the AI Wadhwani Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“Will they accept a Trump administration request if it involves something that’s sensitive or classified?”
These are questions that government clients outside the United States are beginning to take seriously.
