The brand of the massive information analytics software program firm Palantir Applied sciences on show throughout the World Financial Discussion board (WEF) annual assembly in Davos, on Jan. 23, 2025.
Fabrice Coffrini/AFP by way of Getty Photos
cover caption
toggle caption
Fabrice Coffrini/AFP by way of Getty Photos
13 former workers of influential data-mining agency Palantir are condemning the corporate’s work with the Trump administration weeks after Immigration and Customs Enforcement reached a deal to pay Palantir $30 million to offer the company with “close to real-time visibility” into the motion of migrants within the U.S.
In a letter shared completely with NPR, the ex-Palantir staff, former software program engineers, managers and an worker who labored within the agency’s privateness and civil liberties group, say after they joined the highly effective tech firm, they believed in its code of conduct stating that its software program ought to uphold democracy and make sure the accountable improvement of synthetic intelligence.
“Early Palantirians understood the moral weight of constructing these applied sciences,” the 13 former workers wrote in the letter. “These rules have now been violated, and are quickly being dismantled at Palantir Applied sciences and throughout Silicon Valley.”
Palantir and the White Home didn’t return requests for remark.
Palantir, co-founded by Trump ally billionaire Peter Thiel, affords data-analyzing software program that makes use of AI to tug info from a mess of sources and compiles it into charts, tables and warmth maps. Its merchandise have turn out to be in style with giant firms, the army and regulation enforcement.
Their clients embody the Israel Protection Forces and the U.S. Division of Protection. Now, its surveillance instruments are being tapped by the Trump administration to assist velocity up the president’s aim of deporting 1 million migrants this 12 months. Since Trump was elected, Palantir’s share worth has surged greater than 200%.
Though a few dozen former staff are only a fraction of an organization using 4,000, the letter continues to be important. A lot of Palantir’s work is secretive and few former staff criticize the corporate after leaving attributable to non-disparagement agreements most are requested to signal upon leaving. Many former workers additionally maintain firm inventory. Palantir’s market valuation stands at almost $300 billion – about the identical as Financial institution of America.
Alex Karp, Palantir’s CEO, speaks on a panel on the U.S. Capitol on April 30, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Photos
cover caption
toggle caption
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Photos
Whereas prime brass at Silicon Valley’s largest corporations have been displaying help for the Trump administration, research have discovered that rank-and-file tech staff are likely to oppose Trump and maintain liberal views on a number of social points.
Massive Tech workers resisted the primary Trump administration’s insurance policies, together with the makes an attempt to limit immigration and journey from overseas nations, but the previous Palantir workers say the resistance has been muted amongst tech staff in Trump’s second time period.
They wrote: “democracy faces escalating threats: biometric information assortment on immigrant youngsters, journalists being focused, science applications defunded, and key U.S. allies, like Ukraine, sidelined. Trump’s administration has sought to drastically increase govt powers whereas alluding to monarchy,” including that: “Massive Tech, together with Palantir, is more and more complicit, normalizing authoritarianism beneath the guise of a ‘revolution’ led by oligarchs. We should resist this development.”
The signees spotlight what they are saying is Palantir’s “more and more violent rhetoric,” a nod to Palantir chief govt Alex Karp, who publicly boasts about how the corporate’s instruments are used to kill enemies. He as soon as jokingly stated that Wall Road analysts who “tried to screw” the corporate must be sprayed with “mild fentanyl-laced urine.”
The letter additionally zeros in on Elon Musk’s Division of Authorities Effectivity group, which has employed quite a few former Palantir workers to help in slashing and burning the federal authorities.
The tech staff admonish the White Home for its strikes with DOGE and past to undo range, fairness and inclusion initiatives, arguing that these rules “stay important for critiquing energy” and guaranteeing superior AI is deployed ethically.
“As Musk’s DOGE operation dismantles U.S. authorities establishments beneath the guise of exposing corruption, opposition stays silent,” the employees write. “Authorities databases are already erasing references to transgender individuals and gender-affirming care. These injustices might be facilitated by the very software program infrastructure we assist construct.”
The previous Palantir staff write that they’re issuing a warning in hopes of triggering a “domino impact” in Silicon Valley.
They are saying that extra tech staff ought to resist what they see because the misuse of AI and different instruments within the Trump administration’s insurance policies, together with its immigration enforcement and deportation insurance policies that courts and critics say have at occasions ignored due course of rights.
Their purpose, they write is “to talk out whereas we nonetheless can, and to work in opposition to the damaging path within the historical past of know-how we’re at present heading down in the direction of.”
