Palantir’s TITAN, an AI-enabled vehicle. Credit – Courtesy Palantir
Named after J.R.R. Tolkien’s infamously fallible seeing stones, Palantir makes software for managing and analyzing highly complex, unwieldy datasets. The long-time U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contractor doesn’t pull any punches. In mid-April, news broke that the Trump administration—which has set a goal of deporting 20 million immigrants, and detained lawful U.S. residents—is paying Palantir $30 million to make a new tech tool that will aid deportation efforts. Slated for delivery in September, the prototype of the Immigration Lifecycle Operating System, or ImmigrationOS, would give ICE new “near real-time visibility” into so-called “self-deportations” while also helping the agency track and manage forced expulsions and (theoretically) target members of criminal organizations like MS-13, in line with recent White House executive orders. Palantir is well-positioned to profit in the Trump 2.0 era. The CDC is shifting disease data collection into a Palantir system and President Trump has pushed for data-sharing across agencies despite concerns about a “master list” of Americans’ personal information. With about half of Palantir’s revenue coming from government contracts and a stock price hitting record highs this year, CEO Alex Karp told investors in February that “whatever is good for America will be…very good for Palantir.”
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