On March 11, Al Jazeera reported that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had declared six key U.S. and Israeli corporations to be fair targets for resistance in the region: Google, IBM, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Oracle and Palantir.
These “Imperial Six” corporations uphold the U.S. economy which is based on violence and destruction. Exposing them in solidarity with Iran and all oppressed nations will help us bring the war home as we move towards justice.
Workers World has been publishing deep dives into the Imperial Six. In Part 5, the newspaper examined NVIDIA, the most valuable company on earth and the company at the heart of the imperialist boom in generative artificial intelligence. This article finishes up the series with the company that’s been more outspoken than any in defense of U.S. imperialism around the world: Palantir.
Protest outside Palantir facility, Palo Alto, California, Jan. 20, 2026. Photo websource: https://www.rwcpulse.com
Founded in Silicon Valley in 2003 and currently headquartered in Miami, Palantir makes software that allows users — that is, imperial law enforcement agencies — to analyze data from a range of sources.
In January 2024, months after the start of Israel’s genocidal response to Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, the Zionist military entered into an agreement with Palantir worth tens of millions of dollars. Under this deal, the Israeli Occupation Forces use Palantir technology to make decisions about which targets to attack as it wages a war of extermination against the Palestinian struggle for national self-determination.
But even more substantial is Palantir’s role in the imperial core itself. “The Philosopher in the Valley” by Michael Steinberger details this relationship in a biography of Palantir CEO Alex Karp. Steinberger writes that in 2003, at the dawn of the “War on Terror,” the CIA invested $2 million in the fledgling company. By the next year, cofounder Stephen Cohen and engineer Aki Jain were traveling from Silicon Valley to the CIA’s Virginia headquarters every two weeks.
Palantir profited from police militarization as the imperial U.S. government cracked down on dissent, signing deals with police departments across the country. The largest came from the New York Police Department (NYPD) in 2007, at the height of “stop and frisk” police surveillance in New York City. Using Palantir technology and led by CIA veteran David Cohen, the NYPD became an international base of imperial intelligence, with agents posted in proxy cities from London to Singapore to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, to Tel Aviv, Israel.
Palantir’s relationship with imperial law enforcement remains just as important today, as Fed-Spend estimates that the U.S. government paid Palantir $2 billion in 2025, accounting for 41% of the company’s total revenue that year. In every sense, Palantir continues to be inextricably bound up in the U.S. Empire. (fed-spend.com, Feb. 16)
In their own words
Palantir’s close relationship with U.S. imperialism is clearly evident in the language that its founders use to describe the company’s mission. At every turn, they state that, as an outgrowth of the U.S. bourgeois state, the purpose of Palantir is to protect the interests of the owning class.
In January, after the U.S. kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and First Combatant Cilia Flores, Palantir cofounder Joe Lonsdale responded to a tweet arguing that “Commies … should be blown up” by stating, “Exactly. What did you think founding Palantir was supposed to be about?” (inc.com, Jan. 7)
Meanwhile, in early July, CEO Karp declared: “I’m the most publicly supportive CEO of Israel. … I think Israel is on the side of good.” (vinnews.com, July 2)
And co-founder Peter Thiel, a major donor to Donald Trump and primary backer of JD Vance, wrote in 2009: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” (bylinetimes.com, April 30) These words signaled the rise of techno-fascism, with Palantir and the rest of the Imperial Six at its heart.
There is another way. The owning class uses the technology for the empire, but the people can use it for their own needs. In a socialist economy, they can be the directors of their own lives.
Down with Palantir! Down with the Imperial Six! Down with U.S. imperialism! Victory to all oppressed peoples!
