Palantir [music] is perhaps the most

controversial tech company in the world.

>> To some it's a formidable provider of

software solutions that can turbocharge

data analysis.

To others it's a tool that can enable

surveillance and human rights breaches.

>> Either you're deeply against them

because they're undermining civil

liberties.

>> There is a serious resistance building

against Palantir.

>> What we need is people to reject the

surveillance state. It will take a

movement.

>> Or you're deeply for them because this

is vital technology.

>> Palantir is offering something

completely unique that's not available

in other software.

>> This is also a story about public

procurement, how big companies get

themselves embedded within governments.

>> [music]

>> Palantir is a company that turns raw

data into power. Corporate power,

government power, military power.

>> The story matters because Palantir's

battle cry is really to capture as much

of the market as possible.

>> It is coming under fire from politicians

across the spectrum, from [music]

civic groups, from data specialists,

from human rights activists. The big

question is whether this company that

has been around for a couple of decades

now is running out of societal

permission to exist.

Palantir has begun to many to seem like

an arm of the Trump administration.

Partly because of its work for ICE,

Immigration Enforcement in the US, and

its detractors say that that contract

and the software platform that Palantir

is providing is helping Donald Trump

carry out his ruthless immigration

crackdown.

>> They are deeply connected with Trump's

mass deportation regime that is

happening right now. They have a tool

that got a lot of publicity called

Immigration OS.

Palantir has got to They say that it's

will track the near real-time locations

of people looking to self-deport as well

as increase the surveillance capacities

of ICE.

>> The company, of course, says it only

helps the government make sure it's

getting to the right people, people who

are genuinely in the US illegally, et

cetera.

Then there is the company's robust

support for Israel in its war in Gaza.

Those on the right are also suspicious

of Palantir's work and of a corporation

having so much power in Washington that

has somehow managed to upset people on

all parts of the political spectrum.

Political candidates running for office,

especially in the upcoming midterm

elections, and especially Democrats, are

having to disavow any financial links

with the company, are having to divest

any shares they may have held, are

having to return donations from people

linked to Palantir [music] under

pressure from a very well-organized

group of activists.

>> We hope that things will change past the

midterms in the United States.

What we need right now is on both sides

of the aisle people to reject the

surveillance state, people to reject

state violence. That's really the goal

of the purge Palantir campaign. We want

to let Palantir know and we want to let

the world know that their activities

with ICE and the Israeli military cost

them access to these political circles.

It cost them access to recruiting the

top students. It cost them access to

industries. It will also cost them

access to large shareholders.

>> Many of the things that Palantir is

accused of doing are things the company

has repeatedly been on record denying.

But nonetheless, their general posture

and the support of many of the Trump

administration's politics has made the

company a lightning rod for these kind

of criticisms.

>> All of us are out here today because WE

BELIEVE THAT IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THIS

WAY, RIGHT?

>> THEY NEED to be held accountable for the

fact that they don't seem concerned that

much of their profit comes from the

dehumanization, the deportation, the

detention, the caging, the kidnapping of

our immigrant neighbors.

>> I think we have to see Palantir as the

product of its time.

>> [music]

>> After 9/11, there was a real crisis in

the US intelligence services. Nobody

worked out that there was a real threat

despite all the warnings. The Defense

Department came out of this thinking,

[music] "We need to build a technology

platform that will give us complete

awareness." But they called this total

information awareness. And there was a

huge political reaction against this,

and the project died. In the wake of

this, the idea for Palantir was born.

Palantir is a private sector company

trying to do what the US government

couldn't do, connect all the information

that could prevent future terrorism.

>> Palantir is simply a software company.

It's a provider of different software

solutions that pipe data together, that

allow their clients to conduct data

analysis in order to gain greater

insights.

>> It's plumbing, but that is an incredibly

powerful idea, and they're still almost

unique in being able to do this in very

large organizations.

>> It operates

mainly four distinct software platforms,

Gotham, [music] Foundry, AIP, and

Apollo.

>> They started out with Gotham, which is a

platform for combining different data

feeds. They did this for the Pentagon

and the CIA.

>> It's used by the Pentagon to power

something called Project Maven.

>> [music]

>> Think of it as a huge dashboard to bring

in data from everything from social

media to, you know, battleground

information, to aggregate this

information and make it intelligible at

a rapid speed.

>> Which helps the military with things

like tracking terrorist networks or

battlefield targeting. AIP is an

artificial intelligence platform which

integrates AI, LLMs, Apollo, and

Foundry. Apollo and Foundry are often

used by corporations.

>> Palantir was famously arrogant. They

tried to hire the smartest engineers in

the valley, sent these engineers into

all their big customers with the express

mission of saying, "Whatever these

companies are doing, just rip it out and

we'll build something better. Where are

you really making money? What isn't

working? What is?" You know, it's all

hidden in the data.

>> It's important to note that they are not

the database. Their platform sit on top

of existing databases.

>> But what they all have in common is they

are designed to give the end user a

better picture of what is actually going

on in a health service, within a police

force, within the CIA, or within Airbus

or BMW.

>> Palantir was the brainchild of Peter

Thiel and Alexander Karp.

>> Peter Thiel, a libertarian who later

became a Trump supporter. Alex Karp, a

philosophy student, soft Democrat.

>> Together they created this company and

built this thing that the government

couldn't build itself.

>> Karp is unlike any S&P 500 CEO you will

encounter. Karp said that analysts

betting against the company ought to be

sprayed with light fentanyl-laced urine.

They believed that they had a technology

that could save the West and that they

could make billions of dollars while

doing so.

>> We've come to think of tech companies,

or at least we did, as friendly,

consumer-facing.

They want to change the world and make

it better for us. Palantir from the

beginning was a defense contractor.

>> My name is Brandon saying I am the

president and co-founder of Shield AI.

Our mission is to protect service

members and civilians with artificially

intelligent systems. I was a US Navy

SEAL.

>> [music]

>> Palantir organized all the classified

information within the intelligence

community. It was probably a thousand

times better than any piece of software.

Previously, they were asking us to write

intelligence reports on like literally

handwritten notes. 100% Palantir saved

lives. That was my experience with it in

Afghanistan and I'll forever be grateful

for the Palantir product. I've told Alex

Karp this 100% saved my guys' ass on

deployment.

>> It's extremely unusual for a Californian

company, especially at the beginning of

the 2000s, to be so keen on working with

the military. In fact, for decades after

Palantir was founded, some of the

biggest names in American tech shied

away from working with the Pentagon.

>> You can hear the current CEO, Alex Karp,

talk about how they are involved in

almost every conflict in the world right

now. This company is it's intertwined.

It's absolutely intertwined with the

military-industrial complex, and it is

really a sign of what's to come in terms

of what Big Tech's relationship is to

the government. Palantir's goal is to

become the operating system of the US

government and governments broadly.

>> Palantir's largest customer remains the

Department of Defense in the US. It

works with the Department of Homeland

Security, the intelligence community in

the Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Agency.

>> Palantir has really made a huge foray

into many countries, providing services

to well over 100 countries in the world.

>> Mostly Western governments, including

the UK.

>> From the NHS, the financial regulation,

defense.

>> It works with the Israeli Defense

Forces.

>> Palantir has also worked in Ukraine and

provided services to the Ukrainian

forces.

>> It works with Japan. It works with

Taiwan. And then it has a growing

commercial business, Airbus, BP,

>> Axel Springer, the media company, Merck,

the pharmaceutical company,

>> Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, Saudi

Aramco, a host of other household names.

>> Palantir issued on its X feed what a lot

of people have referred to as a

manifesto.

>> A manifesto for Palantir, and also for

America. And some of the points in this

manifesto are really striking. Silicon

Valley

>> [music]

>> owes a moral debt to the United States.

>> It says it has an affirmative obligation

to participate in the defense [music] of

the nation. The company has picked a

side in a way that other companies just

don't do. [music]

>> When his manifesto says, "Forget soft

power, let's just think about hard

power." Software is taking over from

nuclear weapons as the very heart of

defense. [music] You're hearing this

kind of realpolitik that he's been

preaching.

>> There should be national service for

Americans. The post-war neutering of

Germany and Japan needs to be undone and

those countries need to be rearmed.

Silicon Valley should play a role in

addressing violent crime.

>> The idea that someone in this position

with this powerful technology and these

big government contracts takes such

strong positions on social issues and

political issues is deeply unnerving to

a lot of people.

>> This manifesto really just shows what

this company's ideology has been.

>> Donald Trump is right. It's time to end

the era of stupid wars and rebuild our

country.

>> Ever since Peter Thiel stood up and

backed Donald Trump 10 years ago,

Palantir has put itself right in the

political firing line.

>> Some even inside the company say that

Palantir has made itself into a perfect

villain. It's thrived on its notoriety

for so many years.

>> Peter Thiel relishes this kind of

controversy. He likes to antagonize. He

likes to stir up the other side. It's

always been part of his thing. He uses

it very successfully. He trolls his

enemies. This is all good for business.

This is all good for the share price.

>> Palantir is one of the big winners of

the Trump age. It's been worth as much

as 400 billion in recent years. Palantir

has been perhaps the best stock market

performer in the American corporate

landscape. At one point it was up 2,000%

on its IPO price. The share price has

dropped a little bit this year, mostly

on Wall Street's concerns that the AI

age is creating new competitors. But

nonetheless, it is a stonking corporate

success story.

>> We're positive on Palantir because we

think they're one of the few companies

directly benefiting from this massive

explosion in AI spending. A year ago, we

thought this was a business going to be

growing about 30%. This most recent

quarter, they they grew over 80%. We

think that that has room to to move

higher, potentially over 100% year year

and a half ago. This stock appeared to

be trading at about 80 times 90 times

forward revenue, which is sort of

absurd. But then when we we've realized

maybe those revenue estimates are 50%

too low. And by the way, their cash flow

margins are 20 points higher, right? So

all of a sudden, you're saying, "Okay,

here's a business that is could

potentially be growing over 100%

and actually trading at, you know, a

rich valuation, maybe 70 times

75 times free cash flow." But if that's

doubling every year, that quickly

becomes 35 times the following year.

They got to demonstrate that that growth

is sustainable.

>> Now, Palantir itself doesn't build AI.

It doesn't develop large language

models. But they are in this

great position to collect the data that

companies need to feed into the AI

systems to make sense of. Is this one of

the great AI names and stories of the

future? Or are they going to be other

ones that overtake it? There's a long

way to go. They've got a nice start, but

I think where they where they fit into

the AI world isn't clear yet.

>> Palantir has built up a formidable

network on both sides of the Atlantic,

creating what would some people call a

revolving door.

>> A revolving door between the company and

the corridors of power in Washington and

Westminster. Former government officials

have ended up being some of the key

recruits to Palantir in recent years.

>> [music]

>> Gregory Barbaccia, who became the chief

information officer Dodge under Elon

Musk, hired many Palantir alumni.

>> Jacob Helberg, he became under secretary

of state for economic growth, energy and

environment. Mike Gallagher, a

Republican former congressman, and they

hired him to help identify contract

opportunities. They've used former MI6

chief Sir John Sawers to broker

introductions to UK government. Palantir

used Global Counsel, the lobbying

company co-founded by Peter Mandelson.

They have built up this amazing network

of people both who have links into power

and who understand how data and

procurement in government works.

>> They are simply buying in influential

people who formerly worked in government

places they want to get into. That is

unacceptable. That has to stop.

>> The UK has welcomed Palantir with open

arms. In fact, after the US, it's its

biggest government client.

>> Palantir has won a number of contracts

with the UK government, offering it

deals with the Financial Conduct

Authority, the Ministry of Defense, and

even the police services. But the one

contract that's provoked the most

controversy is the one it secured with

the NHS.

>> This is the [music] worst public health

crisis for a generation.

>> If you want to understand how Palantir

won this NHS contract in November 2023,

[music] you have to go back to the

beginning of the pandemic. Inside

Downing Street, everyone sits there and

realizes something that data experts and

analysts have been saying for years, our

data system inside the NHS is

fragmented. Enter Palantir.

Ministers, officials in the NHS,

>> [music]

>> get really, really interested in this

company and what it is able to do.

>> They were actually offering their

services for free, but because of

contracting rules, they offered it for a

pound. And that was to manage what was

called the COVID-19 data store.

>> And from all accounts, it [music] was a

really good system and it really did

help in the early days of the pandemic,

helping organize PPE data, vaccination

data,

>> under the cover of the pandemic and

during the relaxation of the procurement

rules and and a very intense lobbying

campaign, they got the first contract in

the NHS. This is a private security

company who specialize in surveillance

and intelligence, no history in health

care whatsoever.

>> Months after the £1 contract, Palantir

won another one worth £23 million which

critics argue enabled them to go and

work in hospitals all around England

where they were helping to set up the

tools that would eventually form part of

their case for developing the Federated

Data Platform.

Essentially, what it does is it collates

[music] NHS data on things like staffing

levels, hospital bed capacity, waiting

[music]

lists all over the country. Palantir did

indeed win this £330 million contract to

develop the FDP.

>> NHS data really is pretty much unique in

the world. People's health from birth to

death of the whole population level.

This is a hugely valuable data set. The

manner in which Palantir arrived on the

scene and in the NHS has continued to

create suspicion with MPs who are

concerned about the data security, who

are concerned about privacy issues.

>> I don't know how the bidding process

worked. That is not open to scrutiny.

>> It's funny, very little with Palantir is

open to scrutiny. They had a head start

to actually then be inside and to talk

to the right people for the bid for the

Federated Data Platform.

>> Palantir was represented by the lobbying

firm Global Counsel.

>> [music]

>> Which is now defunct because it was

co-founded by Peter Mandelson and it all

fell apart following the revelations

over the former ambassador [music] to

the United States and questions continue

to be asked over the role that Mandelson

played in setting up [music] Palantir

with really senior government officials.

>> If you look at when Keir Starmer first

came into office, his first visit to the

US, he went to the White House and then

he went to Palantir HQ.

>> That meeting, we have no idea what was

discussed and there are no minutes.

>> Transparency is absolutely essential as

well as understanding who is connected

where, because yes, you want the

contract to be awarded to the best

company to do the job in the interest of

the customer, and you can't know that if

it's tied up in backroom decisions

between old boys who know each other.

>> I'm Tom Bartlett. Up until March 26th, I

led the NHS England team that built the

Federated Data Platform. I'm speaking up

now because I feel the debate has become

detached from technical reality. Working

with Palantir was a very positive

experience. They were high-caliber

individuals.

NHS England has been producing figures

for Federated Data Platform. It's

110,000

extra operations delivered.

>> FTs looked really closely at some of the

data claims that NHS England has been

making when it comes to the FDP. And

when you break it down, what you

actually see is that a number of these

performance gains are concentrated in a

very small number of hospital trusts,

and a third of the hospital trusts using

the FDP are delivering fewer operations

since going live on the platform. And in

recent weeks, NHS England itself has

actually conceded that it's hard to

prove the cause and effect between FTP

technology and improved outcomes in

hospitals because there's so many other

variables happening at the same time.

>> Palantir was the only company that was

trialing the Federated Data Platform

with selected trusts while the

procurement process was going on. So, I

would say that wasn't a very fair

procurement process.

>> The procurement of FDP happened in in

2023, and it was very strictly followed

by professionals within NHS. They

weren't doing anybody any favors. The

only technology that could solve the

problem was Palantir, and that's why

they were chosen. If we don't want

people with ethical questions around

them providing into our service, build

in a procurement gateway.

>> There is a really important moment

[clears throat] here when we have lots

of British companies who could be

providing these services. I would say

with much better value for money, that

instill much more public trust.

>> Palantir had 20 years. It's in Silicon

Valley to develop this. They're years

and years ahead of everybody else.

There's no credible alternative right

now.

>> [music]

>> I've done this interview in this way

because it would be career-ending to

criticize policy in this area.

I don't think the Federated [music] Data

Platform is good value for the taxpayer.

And that's why I'm sat here. A number of

people come into work very concerned

about having to work on software

provided by a company they have a

fundamental disagreement with. There was

this huge pressure, which I'd never seen

before, to fall into line. I've heard

from a number of people that they've

been told they would lose their job if

they criticize this program.

>> Lots of the trusts have been refusing to

use it, and lots of doctors are very

bravely speaking out and being forced to

pivot to a Palantir system that is a

subscription service that will benefit

them for the time that they use it and

provides no long-lasting infrastructure

for the NHS is not a good decision for

them and it's not a good decision for

their patients.

>> The Federation of Data is a good idea.

It's a waste of money to have spent it

the way we have done. There's a lot of

technology that already exists and is

already provided by a huge range of

companies that don't have the toxicity

of Palantir associated with them.

There's nothing particularly clever

about this that needs one huge American

company to do it.

>> The original contract was for 330

million pounds. The true cost is likely

to be closer to a billion pounds. You do

have the government looking at how you

could break this contract early.

>> There has been, in the last few months,

serious pressure

on ministers to consider triggering that

break clause by MPs, by hundreds of

thousands of people across the UK, by

doctors, by the British Medical

Association. There is a serious

resistance building against Palantir.

>> Given what Palantir is setting out in

terms of its its mission, I find it

really hard to see how we can maintain

that at the heart of British critical

infrastructure when it is so manifestly

set on protecting American interests and

American Western civilization as it

understands it.

>> If we triggered the break clause, you'd

have to pull the system and replace it

with manual workarounds until you could

find

replacement to migrate it to. You

basically have to go back to all of the

spreadsheets, the bits of paper,

the whiteboards, the phone calls, and

the NHS would go backwards, not

forwards. I would love to see these

campaigners and MPs put forward a

credible plan. I've got no particular

interest in Palantir at all. They just

happen to be the company that can

deliver this.

>> The real concern around Palantir and its

contract with the NHS is about trust.

It's about who has access or not to

patient data.

A new admin role has been created by NHS

England for a small number of Palantir

staff,

>> [music]

>> which an internal briefing note that we

saw said and admits does give Palantir

staff unlimited access to patient data.

And this has really prompted some

concerns about who sees what and when.

Palantir will continue to argue that

legally they cannot do whatever they

want with this patient data and the NHS

England is the controller.

>> It's a huge trust issue. Palantir's

background is in immigration detention,

separating children from their parents

at the US-Mexico border,

counterinsurgency in Iraq and

Afghanistan after 9/11. That company is

now managing everybody in the UK's

health data.

>> A really serious concern that MPs and

critics of this particular deal have

raised is that the way that Palantir

works means that there is a risk, they

argue, of something called vendor

lock-in. Once you're signed up to what

they would describe as Palantir's

subscription service, you can't get out.

And the MOD contract is a classic

example of this, where they won one

contract and then suddenly won another

one and it didn't even go out to tender

because the government felt there was

nobody else at that point who could

continue to offer that specific service.

>> To give a contract to one company

and to say that they're doing something

that nobody else can do is a huge red

flag. If we are dependent on that

country, how sovereign are we?

>> There is a argument around sovereignty

of of data in the UK. It's a shame that

we've allowed ourselves to get into this

position where we've got no real option

other than to

purchase from America unless there's a

complete uh change in terms of that

national policy

singling out this one particular company

and it seems to be the wrong thing to

focus on.

>> There's now an interesting, very live

debate happening in the UK after London

Mayor Sadiq Khan blocked the

Metropolitan Police from awarding

Palantir a 50 million-pound contract.

The reason they gave for this was that

proper procurement rules hadn't been

followed and there were questions of

value for money. But a spokesman for the

mayor also raised concerns that the

procurement process should take into

consideration the ethics of a company.

>> They are getting into every part of the

British state or as much as they're

allowed into.

And so there's a real intention by a

company that has a founder who is very

Trump-aligned.

>> Palantir's UK chief executive has also

made the point, who decides what the

values of London are and is it dangerous

to give politicians the right to decide

what makes a company ethical or not

based on the ideology of that company's

founders?

>> It's no accident that Palantir has

prospered primarily in the years after

the global financial crisis. It has come

in where cash-strapped governments no

longer have the capacity to improve the

state and it has said, "We will solve

this problem for you at [music] a

reduced cost as long as we have

governments who are constantly [music]

looking around for extra investment, who

are constantly struggling to increase

their tax base, to improve their

finances, Palantir is likely to prosper.

>> People should be able to live free of

state surveillance and state violence.

One company should not be sitting at the

nexus of all of this different personal

information that we have.

>> It has a political problem. It has a

growing corporate problem. There may be

competitors brewing. It also has a

problem of societal legitimacy and

whether it will just become one of those

companies that becomes too toxic for any

public body to be associated with.

>> The tools that Palantir provides could

be solving riddles in health research.

They can also be used to more

efficiently kill people.

>> It will take a movement to challenge

Palantir and to root out the companies

that are just like Palantir from our

society.

>> Show me an institution you respect

that's actually working. [music]

>> If Palantir was a boring company without

the pronouncements of the executive, the

controversial statements, people would

be asking less questions.

>> Technology is neutral. The question

should be who are Palantir's customers

and what are they doing? What are

governments and companies doing with all

that data? How do we trust these people

that have all our data? How do we trust

them to do something in our interest?

That's the real problem.

>> [music]

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