The American data processing giant Palantir has just published a manifesto. On the menu: questioning of pluralism, compulsory military service, arms race boosted by artificial intelligence. The trademark of a company which has placed itself at the heart of the American military-industrial complex and now operates without safeguards.

Published on: 04/24/2026 - 5:00 p.m.

Palantir Technologies, flagship of data processing and military analysis in the United States, published on Saturday April 18 a commercial brochure coupled with a 22-point manifesto, encouraging Silicon Valley to commit body and soul to the service of the American military-industrial complex.

“Silicon Valley's technical elite have a duty to participate in the nation's defense,” Palantir said in a text calling for a “Technology Republic,” written by CEO Alex Karp and close aide Nicholas Zamiska.

“The question is not whether AI weapons will be built; it is who will build them and for what purpose,” the company explains on X.

“An era of deterrence, the atomic age, is coming to an end. A new era of deterrence based on AI is about to begin,” the manifesto further predicts.

Well beyond the – usual – quest for new defense contracts, the message goes so far as to propose the introduction of compulsory military service in the United States, and calls for an end to the “impotence” of the Japanese and German armies which was decreed after the defeat of the Axis in 1945.

The manifesto also suggests tech companies take a more muscular role in tackling “violent crime.”

Chastising “elite intolerance toward religious beliefs,” the message called on the United States to reject “empty and hollow pluralism.”

“Certain cultures, and even certain subcultures… have produced wonders. Others have proven to be mediocre, or even worse, regressive and harmful,” says the document, without specifying which cultures it is talking about.

To display this YouTube content, it is necessary to authorize audience measurement and advertising cookies.

An extension in your browser appears to be blocking the loading of the video player. To be able to watch this content, you must disable or uninstall it.

Identify the targets that Washington must eliminate

Founded by libertarian billionaire Peter Thiel, Palantir takes its name from artifacts imagined by J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of "The Lord of the Rings." These magical stones allow the people of Middle-earth to spy on their enemies from a distance.

An echo of the real world, where Palantir provides its customers with data processing software that allows them to bring together information scattered across different platforms and in different formats. This allows analysts to uncover complex patterns that would otherwise be lost in clouds of data.

And the main client of Peter Thiel's company is none other than the American government, its armed forces, its intelligence services and its police forces.

Palantir's services have been widely used by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency to carry out mass and often violent deportations of undocumented migrants. Last April, the Department of Homeland Security awarded it a nearly $30 million contract to develop an AI-based system to track people facing detention and deportation.

Also read: The war in the Middle East seals the rapprochement between tech and the American army

Palantir also provided the Israeli military with AI-based analytics tools during its Gaza offensive, which killed more than 70,000 Palestinians according to UN figures – confirmed by the Jewish state – and reduced much of the territory to rubble.

In 2024, the company signed a strategic partnership with the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to strengthen the country's "war effort." The latter is accused by the International Criminal Court of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Because Palantir does not hide its militaristic inclination. Shyam Sankar, its technical director, recently commissioned as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve, told the New York Times that the company was "very well known" for scouting targets for the U.S. military to eliminate.

“Help the West to be fierce”

According to William Hartung, senior researcher at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, Palantir's proximity to Washington dates back to the beginnings of the "war on terror." Its mission, after September 11, 2001, was to avoid failures in the sharing of information between different American agencies, which had made the attacks possible.

This bet proved extremely lucrative. The Pentagon has asked Congress for an additional $2.3 billion in funding to develop the Maven Smart System, an AI targeting platform designed by Palantir for the US military. The contract was initially awarded to Google, which was ultimately forced to abandon the project in the face of opposition from its employees.

See also War in the Middle East: artificial intelligence at the heart of the conflict

Diederick van Wijk, a researcher at the Dutch think tank Clingendael Institute, believes Palantir executives see their company as proudly shouldering a responsibility that others have rejected.

"What they think - Alex Karp and Peter Thiel in particular - is that Silicon Valley has moved away from its founding principle, which is the relationship between the military and industry, and is all about consumer technology. And they find it problematic that companies with so much power, data and technology are not more patriotic."

Certainly, Peter Thiel and Alex Karp seem to diverge on the precise contours of their belief systems. The latter had thus supported the Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in 2024. But the two men have long professed an attachment to an idealized vision of Western civilization, analyzes Diederick van Wijk.

"From the beginning, they had a very normative vision of what this company should be, limited to working for the United States, then Europe, but still refusing to work with Russia and China. There was always this idea that this company could really help the West to be fierce, to 'protect it at all costs,' in terminology often used by Alex Karp."

This call for a refocus on military power to defend a supposedly failing West strongly echoes the speeches of certain influential figures of the second Trump term, first and foremost Vice-President J.D. Vance.

The national security strategy released last year by the Trump administration focused on what it described as the risk of "civilizational erasure" that Western Europe would face following decades of mass migration.

For his part, Peter Thiel even declared that he considered democracy incompatible with freedom.

“Act without being accountable to anyone”

A lucrative ideology in the Trump era. News of the billionaire's re-election alone sent the company's market capitalization up by $23 billion, with investors rushing to buy shares in the company.

And the lines separating Palantir staff and the US state are increasingly porous: after his return to business, Donald Trump appointed several Palantir executives to key government positions, while the company, in turn, recruited former lawmakers and civil servants.

“Palantir goes well beyond its scope. It should be content to be a supplier, offering technology useful for the implementation of policies determined by the democratic process,” judges William Hartung. "They have knowledge of certain types of technology, but they are not philosopher-kings."

Also read: The calm before the storm Mythos, this serial AI detecting computer flaws

“At some point, this technology would have seen the light of day anyway,” notes Diederick van Wijk. “We're focused on this business, when we should be focused on the underlying technology – the technology that can completely change the dynamics of law enforcement and warfare.”

But Peter Thiel attracts attention through a speech that is “anti-democracy, anti-government, anti-liberal society. He is a very frank libertarian with very particular ideas,” continues the researcher.

"That's where the uneasiness comes from. The company has a conspiratorial side which makes it an obvious culprit, but hiding a much broader trend: that of technological companies so powerful, so little regulated, that they are capable of innovating and acting where they deem it necessary. Without being accountable to anyone."

This article was adapted from English by Sophian Aubin.

Find the original article by clicking here.

Keywords associated with the article

The content you are trying to access does not exist or is no longer available.