Trump Uses CIA-Founded Palantir to Collect Data on Americans: NYT
Palantir's federal expansion raises alarm over privacy and surveillance.
The Trump administration has quietly laid the groundwork to merge massive amounts of federal data on U.S. citizens, according to a report from The New York Times (NYT)—raising serious privacy concerns about government overreach and surveillance.
Founded in 2003 with seed funding from In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital arm, Palantir has long operated as an intelligence-linked surveillance contractor before expanding into civilian agencies.
Now, under Trump, the company is being positioned as the technological backbone of a sweeping federal data consolidation effort.
Many are rightly critical of the New York Times’ biased reporting, but if this story is accurate, it confirms serious concerns about privacy and surveillance—especially with a CIA-funded company like Palantir at the center.
Per NYT:
The Trump administration has expanded Palantir’s work with the government, spreading the company’s technology — which could easily merge data on Americans — throughout agencies.
In March, President Trump signed an executive order calling for the federal government to share data across agencies, raising questions over whether he might compile a master list of personal information on Americans that could give him untold surveillance power.
Trump has not publicly talked about the effort since.
But behind the scenes, officials have quietly put technological building blocks into place to enable his plan.
In particular, they have turned to one company: Palantir, the data analysis and technology firm.
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Trump's Data-Sharing Order Quietly Comes to Life
Trump signed an executive order to make federal data sharing easier—then went silent.
But behind closed doors, his administration has been setting up the infrastructure to potentially create an all-seeing database on Americans, using Palantir as the backbone.
NYT reports:
The Trump administration has expanded Palantir’s work with the government, spreading the company’s technology — which could easily merge data on Americans — throughout agencies.
In March, President Trump signed an executive order calling for the federal government to share data across agencies, raising questions over whether he might compile a master list of personal information on Americans that could give him untold surveillance power.
Mr. Trump has not publicly talked about the effort since. But behind the scenes, officials have quietly put technological building blocks into place to enable his plan. In particular, they have turned to one company: Palantir, the data analysis and technology firm.
Palantir’s Massive Federal Expansion Under Trump
Trump’s team funneled over $113 million into Palantir, not including a nearly $800 million Pentagon contract.
They’re embedding the company’s surveillance tools across multiple departments, paving the way for unprecedented cross-agency data fusion.
The Trump administration has expanded Palantir’s work across the federal government in recent months. The company has received more than $113 million in federal government spending since Mr. Trump took office, according to public records, including additional funds from existing contracts as well as new contracts with the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon. (This does not include a $795 million contract that the Department of Defense awarded the company last week, which has not been spent.)
Representatives of Palantir are also speaking to at least two other agencies — the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service — about buying its technology, according to six government officials and Palantir employees with knowledge of the discussions.
Foundry's Role: Centralizing Americans' Data
At the heart of this operation is Foundry, Palantir’s data-mining software that federal officials say could be used to blend government databases into a single detailed profile on U.S. citizens—including financial, medical, and disability info.
The push has put a key Palantir product called Foundry into at least four federal agencies, including D.H.S. and the Health and Human Services Department. Widely adopting Foundry, which organizes and analyzes data, paves the way for Mr. Trump to easily merge information from different agencies, the government officials said.
Creating detailed portraits of Americans based on government data is not just a pipe dream. The Trump administration has already sought access to hundreds of data points on citizens and others through government databases, including their bank account numbers, the amount of their student debt, their medical claims and any disability status.
Palantir's Deep Ties to Trump’s Inner Circle
The government’s go-to tech company for data consolidation is Palantir—stacked with former employees and funders of Peter Thiel, one of Trump’s most powerful tech allies.
The initiative is being steered by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), riddled with Palantir alumni.
Palantir’s selection as a chief vendor for the project was driven by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, according to the government officials. At least three DOGE members formerly worked at Palantir, while two others had worked at companies funded by Peter Thiel, an investor and a founder of Palantir.
Internal Dissent at Palantir
Palantir employees are uneasy: some quit, while others signed an open letter.
They fear the company is becoming a surveillance machine and are warning about the dangers of combining so much personal data in one place.
NYT’s angle is par for the course anti-Republican, but the employee backlash and internal dissent at Palantir reveal legitimate concerns about the unprecedented risks of consolidating Americans’ personal data—especially when that data is managed by a CIA-funded firm with deep ties to federal surveillance operations.
Some current and former Palantir employees have been unnerved by the work. The company risks becoming the face of Mr. Trump’s political agenda, four employees said, and could be vulnerable if data on Americans is breached or hacked. Several tried to distance the company from the efforts, saying any decisions about a merged database of personal information rest with Mr. Trump and not the firm.
This month, 13 former employees signed a letter urging Palantir to stop its endeavors with Mr. Trump. Linda Xia, a signee who was a Palantir engineer until last year, said the problem was not with the company’s technology but with how the Trump administration intended to use it.
“Data that is collected for one reason should not be repurposed for other uses,” Ms. Xia said. “Combining all that data, even with the noblest of intentions, significantly increases the risk of misuse.”
Digital Rights Groups Sound the Alarm
Groups like EFF are warning: when people no longer trust the government to protect their data, the result is a crisis of trust in public institutions.
Mario Trujillo, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group, said the government typically collected data for good reasons, such as to accurately levy taxes. But “if people can’t trust that the data they are giving the government will be protected, that it will be used for things other than what they gave it for, it will lead to a crisis of trust,” he said.
Palantir & White House Offer No Transparency
Neither Palantir nor the White House will provide clear answers.
Palantir claims it’s just a “data processor.” Trump’s team hides behind “efficiency” language to justify centralized surveillance architecture.
Palantir declined to comment on its work with the Trump administration and pointed to its blog, which details how the company handles data.
“We act as a data processor, not a data controller,” it said. “Our software and services are used under direction from the organisations that license our products: these organisations define what can and cannot be done with their data; they control the Palantir accounts in which analysis is conducted.”
The White House did not comment on the use of Palantir’s technology and referred to Mr. Trump’s executive order, which said he wanted to “eliminate information silos and streamline data collection across all agencies to increase government efficiency and save hard-earned taxpayer dollars.”
Palantir's History with Government, & a Surge Under Trump
Palantir has long been a government contractor.
But Trump’s election sent its stock soaring and gave the company deeper roots in federal surveillance infrastructure—with CEO Karp now backing Trump’s vision for a restructured government.
Some details of Palantir’s government contracts and DOGE’s work to compile data were previously reported by Wired and CNN.
Palantir, which was founded in 2003 by Alex Karp and Mr. Thiel and went public in 2020, specializes in finding patterns in data and presenting the information in ways that are easy to process and navigate, such as charts and maps. Its main products include Foundry, a data analytics platform, and Gotham, which helps organize and draw conclusions from data and is tailored for security and defense purposes.
In an interview last year, Mr. Karp, Palantir’s chief executive, said the company’s role was “the finding of hidden things” by sifting through data.Palantir has long worked with the federal government. Its government contracts span the Defense Department and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During the pandemic, the Biden administration signed a contract with Palantir to manage the distribution of vaccines through the C.D.C.
Mr. Trump’s election in November boosted Palantir’s stock, which has risen more than 140 percent since then. Mr. Karp, who donated to the Democratic Party last year, has welcomed Mr. Trump’s win and called Mr. Musk the most “qualified person in the world” to remake the U.S. government.
Palantir's Latest Moves: IRS Tracking
Palantir’s Foundry is already inside the IRS.
The software is being used to build real-time migrant tracking and to consolidate taxpayer data—raising red flags about scope and intent.
At the I.R.S., Palantir engineers joined in April to use Foundry to organize data gathered on American taxpayers, two government officials said. Their work began as a way to create a single, searchable database for the I.R.S., but has since expanded, they said. Palantir is in talks for a permanent contract with the I.R.S., they said.
A Treasury Department representative said that the I.R.S. was updating its systems to serve American taxpayers, and that Palantir was contracted to complete the work with I.R.S. engineers.
SSA, Education Department, & Cross-Agency Data Merging
Palantir’s reach may soon expand to Social Security and Education, as internal emails suggest plans to merge these databases, essentially creating a unified dossier on Americans.
Palantir representatives have also held talks with the Social Security Administration and the Department of Education to use the company’s technology to organize the agencies’ data, according to two Palantir employees and officials in those agencies.
Employees Raise Security Concerns & Quit Over Ethics
Inside Palantir, insiders are sounding alarms over data security, especially from what the NYT article emphasizes as DOGE’s “sloppy” practices.
Some are quitting outright, unwilling to cross what they now see as an ethical red line.
The goal of uniting data on Americans has been quietly discussed by Palantir engineers, employees said, adding that they were worried about collecting so much sensitive information in one place. The company’s security practices are only as good as the people using them, they said. They characterized some DOGE employees as sloppy on security, such as not following protocols in how personal devices were used.
Ms. Xia said Palantir employees were increasingly worried about reputational damage to the company because of its work with the Trump administration. There is growing debate within the company about its federal contracts, she said.
“Current employees are discussing the implications of their work and raising questions internally,” she said, adding that some employees have left after disagreements over the company’s work with the Trump administration.
Last week, a Palantir strategist, Brianna Katherine Martin, posted on LinkedIn that she was departing the company because of its expanded work with ICE.
“For most of my time here, I found the way that Palantir grappled with the weight of our capabilities to be refreshing, transparent and conscionable,” she wrote. “This has changed for me over the past few months. For me, this is a red line I won’t redraw.”
If a CIA-funded surveillance firm is quietly merging federal databases on Americans—and even its own staff are warning of misuse—then the threat isn’t hypothetical, it’s here.
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To Jesus followers, this is the " beast system" that is going up around us as we're being distracted by dems v. reps, blue v red, and all the rest of it ..... No good for our right to privacy, our right against surveillance, our future.
Thanks for reporting!!
"The forest kept shrinking but the trees kept voting for the axe. For the axe was clever and convinced them since his handle was wood, he was one of them" West Asian Fable