Micha Kat argues that on the brink of global collapse, hope for salvation is increasingly placed in Donald Trump and his administration, yet the rise of Palantir — an AI-driven data powerhouse with ties to Elon Musk — raises fears of an ‘algo-cracy’ where surveillance, militarisation, and suppression of dissent could dominate governance.
Now that the world is on the brink of utter destruction, caused by corrupt and incompetent leadership across the board, for more and more people Donald Trump and his incoming administration constitute the last hope for salvation. This hope may or may not be vindicated, but there is one factor in the whole situation that does not bode well and that factor is called Palantir. Palantir is a Nasdaq-traded tech company founded in 2003 by Peter Thiel, an important Trump supporter and advisor. For years this company has been shrouded in a veil of deep state secrecy, but now that its two main political cheerleaders, Thiel and his long time business partner (together they founded PayPal) Elon Musk, are brought into the public spotlight because of Trump, much more about Palantir has surfaced and that doesn’t look well. Horrible, dark and sinister, in fact. Just this week, a well-known Dutch influencer, Arno Wellens, lifted part of the veil on Palantir and its agenda for the future. Immediately his account on X where he published his work went dark and his nearly 90,000 followers were gone. This was an enormous shock because all of us ‘patriotic’ influencers and reporters thought we were safe on X under Elon. Apparently not when Palantir is in play.
So what is Palantir up to? Basically it’s all about collecting data on organisations and entities but also on individuals. Via a grid of track and trace software, Palantir collects everything: payments, on-line communications, locations, movements, habits. By analysing this data, Palantir can lay bare patterns of behaviour. Now, this information and these patterns can of course be used for good and for bad and it is at this point Palantir loses the benefit of the doubt. And the reason for this is obvious and has already been alluded at: Palantir has become politicised. That means that its data will end up in the hands of politicians that will use them for their own agendas. With Thiel and Musk that close to Trump, there seems no doubt that Palantir will work hand in hand with the Trump administration. This had in fact already been publicly stated and admitted: Palantir will lead the DOGE department of the Trump administration (Department of Government Efficiency, headed by Musk himself). In a promo-video of Palantir itself, the company lays out how through an AI-driven ‘efficiency operation’ the government of the USA will be ‘reinvented’ and ‘streamlined’ for maximum efficiency and minimum redundancy. In practice, this means a full carte blanche for data collection and use on every level, also on individuals and citizens. At this point, Wellens uses the term ‘algo-cracy’ to describe a form of government that is driven by AI and data collection.
As I said before, these data can be used for good and for bad. One of the main reasons Palantir loses the benefit of the doubt here is its heavy presence also in the military infrastructure of the USA. In the mentioned promo video, one of the main goals of Palantir is ‘to protect the West’. Now if Palantir’s data on individuals end up in the hands of a government that is involved in wars on national and international levels, there are no barriers for this government to use these data against individuals ‘to protect the West’. That means that people that write ‘bad things’ on their social media can and will be targeted — exactly as is already happening around the world, especially in the UK. To round things up: a picture emerges of a Musk-dominated Trump administration where ‘wrongspeak’ will be rooted out — exactly the opposite of what Musk propagates as CEO of X. That would mean that Musk would be one of the biggest traitors or con men in history. The title of the mentioned Palantir promo video, dated 2 December 2 2024, is “Elon Musk is about to accelerate Palantir’s growth’.
A final word on what this ‘rooting out’ of ‘wrongspeak’ (and maybe even ‘wrongthink’) may look like. As Wellens also point out, Palantir is developing drones that operate on AI fed by its data collection. Wellens uses the term ‘killer drones’. The nightmare emerges of a government that can kill ‘wrong’ people by sending out Palantir’s killer drones that are AI-programmed with the data that these people themselves generated, for writing ‘wrong things’ on their socials, going to ‘wrong places’ and/or meeting ‘wrong people’. In fact, these types of drone attacks are said to be already happening in Gaza and Lebanon where Israel has killed several leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, supposedly with these types of drones. Now the question is: is Trump aware of this playbook or is Musk using Trump? Alarming in this context is how Trump in his first administration was dominated up to a certain level by Anthony Fauci with devastating consequences.
Now, I wish I could end this piece by writing that ‘this all may of course be just a dark, nightmarish fantasy’ and/or ‘the good intentions of Donald Trump are not in question here — only look at the efforts the deep state makes to stop him’ but I can’t do that. The complete picture simply looks too dark and too ominous for that. Which of course doesn’t mean that it’s impossible that everything will turn out be all right in the end after all. Let’s pray for that on this crucial Christmas Eve.
