The brand of the large information analytics software program firm Palantir Applied sciences on show in the course of the World Financial Discussion board (WEF) annual assembly in Davos, on Jan. 23, 2025.
Fabrice Coffrini/AFP through Getty Photographs
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Fabrice Coffrini/AFP through Getty Photographs
13 former staff 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 crew, 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 staff wrote in the letter. “These ideas 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 data from a mess of sources and compiles it into charts, tables and warmth maps. Its merchandise have change into common with giant companies, the army and legislation enforcement.
Their clients embrace the Israel Protection Forces and the U.S. Division of Protection. Now, its surveillance instruments are being tapped by the Trump administration to assist pace up the president’s aim of deporting 1 million migrants this yr. Since Trump was elected, Palantir’s share value has surged more than 200%.
Though a couple of dozen former staff are only a fraction of an organization using 4,000, the letter remains to be vital. A lot of Palantir’s work is secretive and few former staff criticize the corporate after leaving because of non-disparagement agreements most are requested to signal upon leaving. Many former staff additionally maintain firm inventory. Palantir’s market valuation stands at practically $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.
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Kevin Dietsch/Getty Photographs
Whereas prime brass at Silicon Valley’s largest firms have been displaying help for the Trump administration, studies have found that rank-and-file tech workers are likely to oppose Trump and maintain liberal views on a bunch of social points.
Huge Tech staff resisted the primary Trump administration’s insurance policies, together with the attempts to restrict immigration and journey from international international locations, but the previous Palantir staff 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 broaden government powers whereas alluding to monarchy,” including that: “Huge 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 government Alex Karp, who publicly boasts about how the corporate’s instruments are used to kill enemies. He once jokingly said that Wall Avenue analysts who “tried to screw” the corporate needs to be sprayed with “gentle fentanyl-laced urine.”
The letter additionally zeros in on Elon Musk’s Division of Authorities Effectivity crew, which has employed quite a few former Palantir staff 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 ideas “stay important for critiquing energy” and making certain 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 folks 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 instances ignored due course of rights.
Their goal, 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 the moment heading down in direction of.”
