Palantir Technologies is, let's say, a tech company with ideology (other tech companies also have ideology, but they hide it more). Far-right, naturally. Palantir is dedicated to the analysis of massive data, or big data. It provides services to governments and also to large companies like Airbus, Panasonic, Merck, and others. It is valued at 380,000 million dollars, was founded in 2004, and its name refers to the magic stones that appear in the novel "The Lord of the Rings", by J. R. R. Tolkien (which you can read in Catalan, by the way, in the excellent translation by Francesc Parcerisas). Its two most visible heads are Peter Thiel and Alex Karp, two singular knights. Thiel, a German citizen naturalized American who was also a co-founder of PayPal, is an ultracapitalist shark, specializing in venture capital funds. His theory is that democracy is incompatible with freedom; at least, with economic freedom. Thiel is a supremacist of money above all other values.Alex Karp, for his part, comes from the humanities: he is the son of a progressive Californian family, studied philosophy in Germany and was a disciple of Jürgen Habermas, the philosopher defender of democracy. He is fascinated by literature and adores The Lord of the Rings: despite these characteristics, or precisely because of them, Thiel saw in Karp (they had met, as young men, at Stanford University) someone who understood Palantir's idea better than anyone, and that is why he pushed him to become CEO of the company. Palantir's idea: to dominate the world through data generated on the internet (about 400 million terabytes a day) and artificial intelligence. Karp explains this in a book he published last year, The Technological Republic, which is considered the company's manifesto. Karp says that the era of atomic deterrence is ending and a new era is emerging, that of deterrence based on artificial intelligence. Karp considers that this deterrence is essential to protect the values of the West (he no longer speaks of democracy, but of a “lifestyle” that must be safeguarded). Palantir is dedicated to this.Karp does not hide, quite the contrary, the close collaboration of his company with the governments of the USA and Israel. Palantir's software is behind operations such as the detention of Maduro or the start of the ongoing war in Iran and the Middle East. He does not believe it is Palantir's place to define the limits of the use of its programs. He leaves that to the clients: the CIA, the FBI, the Mossad, or even the American ICE. Palantir also works with other governments such as those of Canada, France, Germany, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, or Saudi Arabia. Or Spain, which in 2023 awarded it a contract from the Ministry of Defense for 16.5 million euros, with the task of implementing military intelligence software dubbed Gotham. Yes, it is the name of the city where Batman lived. Yes, the future is in the hands of highly dysfunctional people.
