Technology sector: The price of Palantir's politics
The week after a US immigration enforcement officer killed an American mother of three on the streets of Minneapolis in January, Palantir's head of "strategic engagement" posted on social media a slickly produced, AI-generated video set to a music track called "Clubbed to Death".
In a series of flash frames, it featured the logo of the company – whose data intelligence platforms are used by the Trump administration to detain and deport migrants – in the midst of a cultist circle, alongside images of the grim reaper, a blood-soaked crucifix, all-seeing eyes and the mysterious slogan "Recon is watching you". Some Palantir staff, already concerned about their employer's enthusiastic embrace of Donald Trump's policies and its defence of Israel's war in Gaza, were appalled. "The company had an absolute internal meltdown," recalls one former employee, who watched the dispute erupt on an internal messaging platform. "You had people being like: 'My customer is a children's hospital – how am I supposed to explain this to them?'"