Snapshot — last verified June 2026
Palantir Watch / They watch everyone. We watch them.
SIGNALS
FOUNDED2003
FY25 REVENUE$4.48B
LOBBY 2025$6.08M
GOVT MIX~54%
CUSTOMERS954 (FY25)
EMPLOYEES4,429 (end FY25)
Market Cap
~$340B
Apr 2026
Govt Revenue
~54%
FY2025 · per 10-K
Largest contract
$10B
U.S. Army ESA · 10-yr ceiling (2025)
CEO 2025 CAP
$11.1B
"compensation actually paid" (proxy)
Active government contracts
classified sources
OTA · awarded Mar 202410 prototypes
$178.4M
DHS · 2014–ongoing · sole-source extension Apr 2025CIVIL RIGHTS FLAGGED
~$145M
UK Health · 2023–2031CONTESTED
£330M
CIA — Gotham platform (counterterrorism)
IC · ~2008–ongoingVALUE UNDISCLOSED
REDACTED
ICE — ImmigrationOS
DHS · awarded Apr 2025CIVIL RIGHTS FLAGGED
~$30M
Persons of interest
RT
Ryan Taylor
Chief Revenue Officer & Chief Legal Officer
WATCH: MED
Watch level (editorial):
MAX — founder + chief executive · HIGH — senior officer with sustained public role · MED — senior officer, less public-facing
MAX — founder + chief executive · HIGH — senior officer with sustained public role · MED — senior officer, less public-facing
Disclosed indicators (FY2025 10-K · 2025 proxy)
Govt revenue share (FY25)
54%
U.S. revenue share (FY25)
74%
Stock as % of NEO comp (FY24)
~76%
NHS FDP redacted pages
417/586
Lobby spend growth '20→'25
+153%
CEO base salary share (FY24)
24%
Recent events log
documented
MAY 2026
London blocks Met Police Palantir deal (up to £50M) on procurement grounds
On May 20, 2026, London's deputy mayor for policing and crime, Kaya Comer-Schwartz, refused to approve a proposed Met Police contract with Palantir UK — £25.3M for 2026-27 plus a £24.8M optional 2027-28 extension — citing a "clear and serious breach" of procurement rules and concern the tender unfairly favoured Palantir. The Met then published ~30 tender notices covering £300M+ of future technology; Palantir's Louis Mosley criticised the decision. (BBC, The Register, Computing, May 2026)
MAY 2026
UK government cancels Homes for Ukraine contract, moves in-house
The Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government cancelled Palantir's Homes for Ukraine contract and moved to an in-house model, saying it saved the public purse millions. Palantir had taken the work on free in 2022, then raised the price to over £10M within two years. (TechPolicy.Press / Foxglove, May 2026)
APR 2026
Palantir posts 22-point "manifesto" on X; UK political backlash follows
On April 19, 2026, Palantir's official account posted a 22-point thread summarising The Technological Republic, asserting that "some cultures … remain dysfunctional and regressive" and urging an end to the postwar demilitarisation of Germany and Japan and a return to a U.S. military draft. The post drew ~32M views in two days; PLTR moved under 1%. UK MPs condemned it — Lib Dem MP Victoria Collins called it the "ramblings of a supervillain," Lib Dem MP Martin Wrigley "a parody of a RoboCop film," and Labour MP Rachael Maskell "quite disturbing." A UK petition to break Palantir contracts passed 200,000 signatures. (Guardian, Euronews, Benzinga, Democracy Now!, Apr 2026)
APR 2026
NHS FDP early-exit signalled in Parliament after manifesto backlash
At Westminster Hall in late April 2026, junior health minister Zubir Ahmed said the £330M NHS Federated Data Platform could be reassessed at its spring-2027 break clause, citing patient safety and value for money — adding to pressure already building around the contract. (The Register / Gizmodo, Apr 2026)
JUL 2025
U.S. Army awards Enterprise Service Agreement, up to $10B / 10 yrs
Consolidates 75 prior contracts into a single ESA. Largest deal in Palantir history. (army.mil press release, 31 Jul 2025)
MAY 2025
NHS FDP uptake stalls — fewer than ¼ of trusts using it (end-2024)
Per NHS figures and FOI responses; DHSC awarded KPMG £8.5M in April 2024 to "promote adoption." Palantir said 72 trusts using as of May 2025; NHS England reported 110 trusts live or in delivery by end of January 2026.
OCT 2025
Reuters: Army memo flags security weaknesses in NGC2 (Palantir/Anduril)
Stock fell 7.5% on Oct 3, 2025; investor inquiries followed from Glancy Prongay & Murray, Pomerantz, Robbins Geller, Levi & Korsinsky.
Primary sources:
Palantir FY2025 10-K ·
SEC EDGAR — PLTR ·
OpenSecrets ·
USAspending.gov ·
Submit a correction
World operations map — 36 countries confirmed or suspected
data through Apr 2026open-source intel
Confirmed government contract
Commercial / enterprise
Suspected / unconfirmed
No known presence
Americas
United States
Canada
Colombia
Brazil
Mexico
Europe
United Kingdom
Germany
France
Ukraine
Norway
Denmark
Netherlands
Finland
Switzerland
Poland
APAC & MENA
Australia
New Zealand
Japan
South Korea
Israel
UAE
Saudi Arabia
India
Singapore
Primary sources:
Palantir FY2025 10-K ·
NHS England (FDP) ·
Reuters — Palantir ·
DefenseScoop ·
Submit a correction
Money & influence module — lobbying & political donations
data through 2025 cyclesource: FEC · OpenSecrets · senate.gov
Lobby spend (2025)
$6.08M
per OpenSecrets · ▲ 153% vs 2020
Lobby spend (2024)
$5.77M
per OpenSecrets · Senate LDA filings
PAC to fed. candidates
$38K
2023–24 cycle · Palantir Technologies PAC
Outside firms retained
2+
verified: Invariant, Cornerstone (see LDA)
Annual lobbying expenditure
2025
$6.08M
2024
$5.77M
2023
$5.09M
2022
$2.70M
2021
$2.20M
2020
$2.40M
Retained lobbying firms (verified)
Border / commercial tech$360K H1 2024
Federal · appropriations$50K Q4 2025
Other firms — see Senate LDA filings
Personal political giving (founders)
FEC · personal, not corporate
Trump-aligned super PAC · Dec 2024
$1.00M
Karp → Trump 2025 Inaugural Committee
Inauguration sponsor · Jan 2025
$1.00M
Thiel → Make America Number One
Pro-Trump super PAC · 2016 cycle
$1.00M
to federal candidates · 2023–24 cycle
$38K
Revolving door (verified)
select examples
MG
Rep. (R-WI), CCP Cmte Chair→Palantir Head of Defense (Apr 2024)
DP
Doug Philippone
U.S. Special Forces→Palantir Global Defense (~12 yrs) → Snowpoint Ventures
LM
Louis Mosley
UK Conservative Party adviser→Exec Vice-Chair, Palantir UK (NHS FDP lead)
Lobbying totals (2025: $6.08M; 2024: $5.77M; 2023: $5.09M; 2022: $2.70M; 2021: $2.20M; 2020: $2.40M) are from OpenSecrets, calculated from Senate Office of Public Records (LDA) filings; data downloaded Jan 2026. Palantir Technologies PAC (FEC C00498691) gave $38K to federal candidates in the 2023–24 cycle. Personal donations from Karp ($1M to MAGA Inc., Dec 2024; $1M to the Trump 2025 Inaugural Committee) and historical giving from Thiel are individual political activity, not Palantir corporate spending. America PAC (FEC C00867572) is associated with Elon Musk, not Thiel, and any prior reference here was an error.
Primary sources:
OpenSecrets — Palantir ·
Senate LDA filings ·
FEC — Palantir PAC ·
OpenSecrets News, Apr 2026 ·
Submit a correction
Court dossier — known litigation & regulatory action
as of Apr 2026documented filings only
Securities matters
2+
10th Cir. appeal · open NGC2 investigations
Regulatory & advocacy
UK · US
NHS FDP coalition; ACLU + Amnesty on ICE
Cupat class period
2020–2022
post-IPO direct-listing window
Verified settlements
—
no PACER-confirmed payouts cited here
Pending litigation
D. Colo. (No. 1:22-cv-02384) · 10th Cir. on appealFiled Sept 2022 · dismissed Apr 4, 2025
Consolidated securities-fraud class action against Palantir, Karp, Glazer, Sankar, and (after amendment) Cohen, Thiel, and other directors, alleging misstatements about the sustainability of government-segment growth around and after the September 2020 direct listing. Plaintiffs alleged substantial insider stock sales at allegedly inflated prices in the period leading up to a sharp May 9, 2022 share-price drop. Dismissed April 4, 2025 by Judge Gordon P. Gallagher (D. Colo.); the court applied Slack Technologies v. Pirani, 598 U.S. 759 (2023), and held Section 11 liability is "likely foreclose[d]" in the direct-listing context. Plaintiffs appealed to the Tenth Circuit.
'34 Act §10(b) · '33 Act §11
Class action · appeal pending
UK · advocacy + parliamentary scrutinycontract Nov 2023 · break clause Feb 2027
There is no single named regulatory action against the £330M NHS FDP contract awarded to a Palantir-led consortium in November 2023. Instead, a coalition has formed around the Feb 2027 contract break clause: Amnesty International has called for termination, joined by Medact, the Good Law Project, Privacy International, Foxglove, and openDemocracy; an April 2024 health-worker blockade was held at NHS England HQ; a patient petition surpassed 47,000 signatures. The UK government in April 2026 signalled it may exercise the early break option. Adoption has been uneven — fewer than a quarter of English hospital trusts were actively using the FDP by end of 2024.
UK GDPR · DPA 2018
Coalition advocacy
U.S. · advocacy, not litigationongoing · Amnesty letter Oct 2025
The ACLU's #NoTechForICE campaign calls on Palantir, Amazon, Microsoft, Thomson Reuters, and RELX to stop selling tools to ICE and CBP. In October 2025, Amnesty International formally called on Palantir and Babel Street to "immediately cease their work" with U.S. immigration enforcement. These are advocacy actions and shareholder pressure, not formal lawsuits, but they shape the regulatory and reputational environment around Palantir's largest non-defense U.S. business line.
Civil liberties advocacy
Reputational
Glancy Prongay & Murray · Pomerantz · Robbins Geller · Levi & Korsinskyannounced Oct 2025 · investor-inquiry stage
After an October 3, 2025 Reuters report on a U.S. Army memo describing the Palantir/Anduril Next-Generation Command and Control (NGC2) battlefield communications platform as having serious security weaknesses — including vulnerability to insider threats, external attacks, and data spillage — multiple plaintiff firms (Glancy Prongay & Murray, Pomerantz, Robbins Geller, Levi & Korsinsky) opened investor inquiries on whether public statements about NGC2 misled investors. Palantir stock fell 7.5% to roughly $173 on the day of the report. No formal complaint had been filed at the time of writing.
Securities disclosure
Investigation stage
Historical FOIA & transparency actions (verified)
JAN 2020 · Settled (FOIA)
EPIC v. ICE — Freedom of Information Act. The Electronic Privacy Information Center settled a FOIA lawsuit against ICE seeking records on the agency's use of Palantir technology for surveillance. EPIC obtained attorneys' fees as a result of the litigation.
This section now lists only litigation, regulatory action, and FOIA disposition that can be verified in PACER, ICO records, EDGAR, or contemporaneous news reporting. Earlier drafts contained illustrative case numbers, settlement amounts, and case names ("LAPD class action — $31M," "New Orleans PredPol — $18.5M," "Kik v. Palantir — $22.5M," "i2 Group/IBM patent," "former employee whistleblower — $22M," "EU DPA Coordinated Enforcement — €800M") that could not be located in the public record and have been removed. Always consult PACER directly.
Primary sources:
PACER ·
CourtListener — Cupat docket ·
Glancy Prongay — NGC2 release ·
EPIC v. ICE archive ·
ACLU — #NoTechForICE ·
Submit a correction
Public output & organized critics — Karp's documented record
as of Jun 2026primary sources only
Books
1
The Technological Republic, Feb 2025
NYT op-ed
2023
"Our Oppenheimer Moment" · Jul 25, 2023
Annual letters
5
since IPO · 3,000–6,000 words each
Bilderberg
Steering
Cmte member · per public listings
Major signed & on-record output
verified
Palantir 22-point "manifesto" — X thread summarising The Technological Republic
Palantir official account · ~32M viewsApr 19, 2026corporate post
Karp & Nicholas Zamiska · CrownFeb 2025book
Alex Karp · NYT op-edJul 25, 2023
Maureen Dowd interview — Huntington / "organized violence" framing
Karp · NYT2025long-form
Reagan National Defense Forum keynote — "corporate elite … go play golf"
Karp · RND Forum2023on-stage
Annual shareholder letters
Palantir IR
2024 letter — most recent
filed with FY2024 10-KFeb 2025
FY2023 10-KFeb 2024
FY2022 10-KFeb 2023
FY2021 10-KFeb 2022
2020 letter — post-IPO inaugural
S-1 prospectus / FY2020 10-K2020
Conference & forum circuit (verified)
primary record
Karp on panels & bilateral interviews
2023–2026
annual
2023 keynote · "play golf" remark documented
annual
defense
Karp on Steering Committee
member
closed-door
Transatlantic defense / policy circuit
recurring
Hill & Valley Forum, D.C.
Defense-tech / Capitol Hill audience
recurring
Dec 2024 · "arrogant prick" exchange
on-record
filmed
Recurring positions (from his own writing)
themes
T1
"Technological republic"
Thesis of the 2025 book: Silicon Valley engineering talent should be re-fused with state purpose. Argument that tech firms have shed a civic responsibility post-Cold War and that the West needs them back.
T2
"Oppenheimer moment"
Frame from the July 2023 NYT op-ed: AI weapons are a civilizational inflection point comparable to the nuclear era; the West must build them or cede the era to adversaries.
T3
Huntington's "organized violence"
Recurring quotation in shareholder letters and the Maureen Dowd NYT interview: Samuel Huntington's claim that Western dominance was secured "by its superiority in applying organized violence."
T4
Critique of Silicon Valley quietism
Recurring forum and earnings-call line: tech executives who refuse defense work are described as ethically incoherent free-riders on the security guarantees their freedom to opt out depends on.
Documented organized criticism
C1
In Oct 2025, Amnesty formally called on Palantir and Babel Street to "immediately cease their work" with U.S. immigration enforcement. Amnesty UK has separately called on the UK government to terminate the NHS FDP contract at the Feb 2027 break clause. In May 2026, Amnesty UK welcomed London's block of the Met Police deal, with campaigns manager Kristyan Benedict stating that Palantir's tools are used by the Israeli military in Gaza.
C2
Long-running ACLU campaign demanding that Palantir, Amazon, Microsoft, Thomson Reuters, and RELX stop selling tools to ICE and CBP, with detailed reporting on how ICM/FALCON enable interior enforcement.
C3
UK-based research and advocacy organisation; has published extensively on Palantir's role in the NHS FDP, predictive policing, and surveillance procurements globally. Member of the NHS coalition opposing FDP.
C4
Health-worker organisation; co-organised the April 2024 blockade at NHS England HQ over the FDP and a 47,000+ patient petition demanding the contract be terminated.
C5
UK litigation-focused organisations; Foxglove pursued data-rights challenges around NHS data sharing, and the Good Law Project has supported parliamentary scrutiny of the FDP procurement.
C6
Independent investigative outlet whose reporting drove much of the public record on the NHS FDP procurement, U.S. immigration contracts, and Palantir-government data flows.
C7
Campaigned against Palantir's UK public contracts on the basis of the company's reported supply of AI and surveillance technology to Israel; credited by the mayor's office as a factor in the May 2026 Met Police decision, and active in the 200,000+ contract-break petition.
This panel inventories Karp's documented public output — the 2025 book, the bylined NYT op-ed, annual shareholder letters on Palantir's IR site, on-record forum appearances — and the formally-named organisations on the public record opposing specific Palantir contracts. Earlier drafts of this section contained editorial scoring of outlets, invented op-ed headlines with "ghost-written" attributions, sentiment percentages by beat, a "conference-to-contract conversion rate," and "playbook tactics" presented as research findings; none could be sourced and all have been removed.
Primary sources:
Palantir IR — shareholder letters ·
NYT — Karp op-ed ·
Amnesty International ·
ACLU ·
Privacy International ·
Submit a correction
Subject file — executive dossier · classified: public · verified Apr 2026
Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder · Palantir Technologies Inc. · Denver, CO
MAX
Watch level
PERSON OF INTEREST
Born
1967
New York City (raised in Philadelphia)
Net worth
~$14B
Bloomberg, early 2026 · peaked ~$18B 2025
Education
PhD
Goethe Univ. Frankfurt
PLTR stake
~4.3%
~103M sh · Sept 2025 (Bloomberg)
Languages
4
EN · DE · FR · partial
Biographical timeline
1967 — Birth
Born in New York City to Robert Joseph Karp, a Jewish-American clinical pediatrician, and Leah Jaynes Karp, an African American artist. Raised in Philadelphia with his younger brother. Parents were active in civil rights and labor-rights advocacy. Graduated from Central High School, Philadelphia, in 1985.
1989 — Haverford College
BA in philosophy and social theory from Haverford College. Becomes interested in critical theory, Frankfurt School, Adorno and Habermas. Has spoken publicly about being dyslexic, which he credits with shaping his thinking style. Reportedly was a self-described leftist throughout his undergraduate years — a detail he now deploys to confuse critics.
1989–1992 — Stanford Law
Enrolls at Stanford Law School after Haverford and earns his J.D. in 1992. Meets classmate Peter Thiel. Does not practice law; later calls Stanford Law "the worst three years of my adult life." The relationship with Thiel becomes the most consequential of his professional life.
2002 — PhD, Frankfurt
Completes doctorate in neoclassical social theory at Goethe University, Frankfurt. Per Brede's own statements, his thesis supervisor was Karola Brede, not Jürgen Habermas — the figure Karp himself most often cites. Dissertation explores aggressivity in contemporary society — a framework he will later apply, with some irony, to selling AI weapons systems to governments.
2003 — Palantir founded
2010–2019 — The long private years
Palantir remains private far longer than peers. Karp is notoriously reclusive during this period. Operates from Palo Alto, later relocates to Colorado mountains. Builds reputation for eccentricity — tai chi, qigong, Nordic skiing, and long solo hikes punctuate the corporate calendar. Lives primarily in Lyman, New Hampshire.
2020 — NYSE direct listing
Palantir goes public via direct listing at $10/share, bypassing traditional IPO. Karp's opening letter calls Western liberal democracy "the highest order of human governance" while simultaneously signing contracts with governments whose behavior challenges that claim.
2022–present — The hawkish turn
Post-Ukraine invasion, Karp becomes increasingly vocal — and marketable — as a defense intellectual. Davos appearances, FT profiles, Atlantic essays. The former Frankfurt School leftist is now the face of AI-powered military logistics and is comfortable with the contradiction.
Known associates
inner circle
SC
Stephen Cohen
Co-founder · President & Secretary
Founding cohort
SS
Shyam Sankar
CTO · long-tenure deputy
Operational
RT
Ryan Taylor
Chief Revenue Officer & Chief Legal Officer
Legal & revenue
Equity & holdings
PLTR common shares
~4.3% stake · ~103M sh (Sept 2025, Bloomberg)
~$14B
2020 IPO equity grant
141M options + 39K RSUs · 10-yr vest · no new grants since
$1.1B at IPO
Real estate
Snowmass CO · Grafton County NH · CA
$120M+
2025 compensation
Summary $8.62M · "comp actually paid" $11.09B
$11.1B CAP
The quotes file — self-incrimination log
"We are happy that we are involved in the killing… We built a product that is used to kill people."
Karp · NYT DealBook SummitNov 2023
"If you're a pacifist, Palantir is not the right place to work."
Karp · multiple public settingsrecurring
"The critique I get on Wall Street is I'm an arrogant prick. Okay, great. Well, you know, judge me by the accomplishment."
Karp · NYT DealBook SummitDec 2024
"Palantir is here to disrupt and make the institutions we partner with the very best in the world and when it's necessary to scare enemies and, on occasion, kill them."
Karp · Q4 2024 earnings callFeb 3 2025
"There will be ups and downs. There's a revolution. Some people are going to get their heads cut off."
Karp · Q4 2024 earnings callFeb 3 2025
"The rise of the West was not made possible by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion … but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence."
Karp quoting Huntington · shareholder lettersrecurring
"Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive."
Palantir · 22-point X post (re: Karp's book)Apr 19 2026
Field observations — known quirks & operational patterns
01
The near-zero new equity. Karp's 2025 base salary was $1.10M (plus ~$7.52M in "other compensation," largely security and travel) with no new stock grants — yet his SEC-mandated "compensation actually paid" figure was $11.1B because of mark-to-market gains on existing equity. The gap between his summary comp ($8.62M) and "actually paid" comp ($11.1B) is one of the widest of any U.S. public-company CEO.
02
The New Hampshire base. Karp's primary residence is in Lyman, New Hampshire — he delivers earnings calls from wooded trails or ski huts. In December 2025 he purchased the former St. Benedict's Monastery, a 3,700-acre property near Aspen, Colorado, for $120M (a Pitkin County residential price record).
03
The wellness regimen. Karp practices tai chi and qigong, swims in cold water (often in winter), and is a serious Nordic skier. He has led employee meditation sessions, and Palantir offices feature meditation-related items. He has also said he kicks a soccer ball with employees in lieu of conventional 1:1s.
04
The Habermas invocation. In almost every major interview, Karp references the Frankfurt School and his Goethe-Frankfurt doctorate. He routinely cites Habermas as an intellectual touchstone — though his actual thesis supervisor was Karola Brede. Critics note that Habermas's project was a critique of instrumental rationality in service of domination — the precise thing Palantir sells to governments.
05
The annual letter. Each year's shareholder letter is written entirely by Karp and runs to 3,000–6,000 words — far longer than peers. They contain almost no financial guidance and substantial quantities of political philosophy. Analysts have stopped trying to extract forward guidance from them.
06
The hair. Karp's signature shoulder-length silver hair is not accidental. Former communications staff confirm it is a deliberate brand element — a visual shorthand for "not a normal tech CEO" that has been carefully maintained across two decades of media appearances. It is doing a lot of work.
All biographical information sourced from public records, SEC filings, and published interviews. Quotes are from the public record (earnings calls, on-stage interviews, shareholder letters).
Subject file — executive dossier · classified: public · verified Jun 2026
Co-Founder & Chairman · Palantir Technologies Inc. · Founders Fund · Los Angeles, CA
MAX
Watch level
PERSON OF INTEREST
Born
1967
Frankfurt, West Germany
Net worth
~$29B
Forbes RTBL, 2026 · Bloomberg ~$23B Aug 2025
Education
JD
Stanford Law '92 (BA philosophy '89)
PLTR stake
~4%
~98M sh incl. entities · Mar 2026 (Bloomberg)
Passports
4
DE · US · NZ · MT
Biographical timeline
1967 — Birth
Born in Frankfurt, West Germany. The family emigrates while he is an infant; he spends part of his early childhood in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) following his father's mining work, before the family settles in Foster City, California. An outsider's vantage point he never fully sheds.
1989 — Stanford (BA, philosophy)
Earns a BA in philosophy from Stanford. Co-founds the contrarian campus paper The Stanford Review — the first deployment of a culture-war template he later scales. Falls under the influence of René Girard's theory of mimetic desire, which becomes his lifelong intellectual frame.
1992 — Stanford Law (JD)
Earns his J.D. from Stanford Law School, where classmate Alex Karp is a contemporary. Clerks, briefly joins a law firm, and trades derivatives at Credit Suisse. Finds elite professional life hollow — a disillusionment he reframes as the founding insight of his philosophy: conventional competition is a trap.
1998 — PayPal
Co-founds Confinity, which becomes PayPal; sold to eBay in 2002 for ~$1.5B. The exit seeds the "PayPal Mafia" — Musk, Sacks, Levchin, Hoffman and others — the network that funds much of Silicon Valley's next two decades, with Thiel at its center.
2003–2005 — Palantir & the first Facebook check
Co-founds Palantir with Karp, Cohen, Lonsdale and Gettings, providing the early ~$30M; the CIA's In-Q-Tel co-invests. In 2004 he becomes the first outside investor in Facebook — $500K for ~10.2% — and in 2005 launches Founders Fund.
2009 — "The Education of a Libertarian"
Publishes an essay in Cato Unbound declaring freedom and democracy incompatible, and lamenting that women's suffrage and welfare expansion had been unhelpful to the libertarian cause. The intellectual core of the project, stated plainly and rarely walked back.
2016 — Gawker & Trump
Revealed as the secret financier of Hulk Hogan's lawsuit that bankrupts Gawker — retaliation for a 2007 article that outed him. Speaks at the Republican National Convention and becomes an early, prominent Trump donor, bridging Silicon Valley capital and national politics.
2022–present — The kingmaker turn
Funds JD Vance (~$15M) and Blake Masters; Vance ascends to the vice presidency. The Thiel network embeds across the administration while Palantir stock soars — and Thiel steadily sells shares (a ~$273M tranche in May 2024 alone). Influence maximized, exposure managed.
Known associates
inner circle
BM
Blake Masters
Founders Fund · protégé · candidate
Vehicle
Equity & holdings
PLTR shares (direct + entities)
~4% · ~98M sh via Thiel Capital, Rivendell, et al.
~$13B
Founder · ~42.5% of firm (2025 Form ADV)
~42.5%
Facebook / PayPal proceeds
First FB investor 2004 · stake largely sold by 2012
~$1B+ (FB)
Real estate
New Zealand · Miami · Buenos Aires (2026)
~$100M+
The quotes file — self-incrimination log
"I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible."
Thiel · Cato Unbound2009
"Competition is for losers."
Thiel · WSJ essay2014
[Funding the Gawker suit was] "one of my greater philanthropic things that I've done."
Thiel · New York Times2016
"We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters."
Thiel · Founders Fund manifestoc. 2011
"Crypto is libertarian, AI is communist."
Thiel · public remarks2018
"Monopoly is the condition of every successful business."
Thiel · Zero to One2014
Field observations — known quirks & operational patterns
01
The Gawker campaign. Thiel secretly bankrolled Hulk Hogan's lawsuit — reportedly ~$10M over several years — to bankrupt the outlet that outed him in 2007. He reframed a personal vendetta as "deterrence" and "philanthropy." The blueprint — third-party litigation funding to destroy a publisher — is now widely imitated.
02
The kingmaker model. Thiel does not run for office; he installs people. He mentored JD Vance (now Vice President), funded his Senate run with ~$15M, and backed Blake Masters. He consistently prefers structural leverage over personal visibility.
03
The pledged shares. While publicly championing Palantir's mission, Thiel has sold tens of millions of PLTR shares since the 2021 lockup (a ~$273M tranche in May 2024 alone). Per the proxy, he has pledged more than 10% of his ~98M shares as collateral for personal debt — so Bloomberg removes those from his net worth calculation. Conviction and liquidation proceed in parallel.
04
The escape hatch. The man who wrote that freedom and democracy are incompatible holds several passports — including a controversially fast-tracked New Zealand citizenship granted in 2011 — and has funded seasteading. An architect of exit-from-democracy who keeps his own exits ready.
05
The immortality project. Thiel funds anti-aging research (notably the Methuselah Foundation) and has spoken openly about cryonics and radical life extension. He treats mortality less as a fact of life than as an engineering problem awaiting sufficient capital.
06
The Antichrist turn. Since 2024 Thiel has delivered a lecture series framing the Antichrist and apocalypse against the "end of modernity," and reportedly urges fellow billionaires not to sign the Giving Pledge — arguing the money would flow to causes he opposes. The contrarian intellectual brand, escalated.
All biographical information sourced from public records, SEC filings, and published interviews. Quotes are from the public record (essays, on-stage interviews, books). Net-worth and stake figures are third-party estimates that vary by source and date.
Executive compensation tracker — proxy statement analysis
FY2025 · per 2026 proxysource: DEF 14A · SEC Form 4 · EDGAR
Total exec comp (2025)
~$67M
summary comp, 5 NEOs (proxy)
Stock as % of comp
~98%
Glazer & Taylor 2025 (RSU+SAR); Karp $0 new equity
CEO pay ratio
~37×
summary comp vs. median (CAP basis: ~48,000×)
Karp insider sales (2024)
~$1.9B
Form 4s · cited in Wikipedia/Bloomberg
Named executive officers — 2025 compensation breakdown
AK
Alex Karp
Chief Executive Officer · Co-Founder
$8.62M
2025 summary comp (proxy)
Base salary
$1.10M
Stock awards
$0
Other / perks
$7.52M
SS
Shyam Sankar
Chief Technology Officer
$1.21M
2025 summary comp (proxy)
Base salary
$509K
Stock awards
$0
Other
$700K
RT
Ryan Taylor
Chief Revenue Officer & Chief Legal Officer
$27.96M
2025 summary comp (proxy)
Base salary
$443K
Equity (RSU+SAR)
$27.5M
Other
$37K
DG
David Glazer
Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer
$27.97M
2025 summary comp (proxy)
Base salary
$450K
Equity (RSU+SAR)
$27.5M
Other
$37K
SC
Stephen Cohen
President & Secretary · Co-Founder
$1.00M
2025 summary comp (proxy)
Base salary
$274K
Stock awards
$0
Other
$730K
Total exec comp trend
2025
~$67M
2024
~$30M
2023
~$5M
2022
see DEF 14A
2021
see DEF 14A
2020
~$1.1B (Karp IPO grant)
Peer CEO pay comparison
most recent fiscal year per proxy
Karp / PLTR (summary, FY25)
$8.62M
Leidos CEO (Bell, FY24)
$12.5M
Booz Allen CEO (Rozanski, FY24)
$15.6M
Snowflake CEO (Ramaswamy, FY25)*
$101.3M
C3.ai CEO (Siebel, FY24)
$24.8M
S&P 500 median (Equilar/AP 2024)
$17.1M
*Snowflake FY25 figure includes one-time appointment-grant equity (~$95M of $101.3M). Prior CEO Slootman's FY24 summary comp was $21.2M.
~37×
CEO-to-median-worker pay ratio (summary compensation, FY2025)
Palantir disclosed a FY2025 CEO-to-median pay ratio of ~37:1 on a summary-compensation basis (2026 proxy).
Karp's summary comp was $8.62M; his SEC-mandated "compensation actually paid" figure — which marks equity to market — was $11.1B, widening the gap to roughly 48,000× the median worker.
Karp's summary comp was $8.62M; his SEC-mandated "compensation actually paid" figure — which marks equity to market — was $11.1B, widening the gap to roughly 48,000× the median worker.
Insider share sales (2024 YTD)
Form 4 filings
Alex Karp
10b5-1 plan · multiple Form 4 tranches
~$1.9B
FY2024 (cited in WP/Bloomberg)
Peter Thiel
Rivendell 7 / STS Holdings II · 10b5-1 plan
~$273M
early May 2024 tranche
Shyam Sankar
10b5-1 plan · per Form 4 filings
disclosed
see EDGAR
Ryan Taylor
open market · per Form 4 filings
disclosed
see EDGAR
David Glazer
10b5-1 plan · per Form 4 filings
disclosed
see EDGAR
Pay-for-performance flags
per 2026 proxy CD&A
F1
Outsized 2025 equity grants to non-CEO NEOs
Glazer and Taylor each received ~$21.2M in stock awards (grant-date value) in February 2025 — the bulk of their ~$28M total compensation, versus Karp's $8.62M. Per the 2026 DEF 14A.
F2
Equity dwarfs cash; no bonuses paid
For 2025, NEO pay is dominated by equity, not cash — base salaries run ~$0.45M–$1.10M while stock awards reach ~$21M. The proxy reports no annual bonuses were paid to NEOs for 2025. Per the 2026 DEF 14A.
Compensation figures here reflect the 2026 DEF 14A (FY2025) summary compensation table (Karp: $8.62M; Cohen: $1.00M; Sankar: $1.21M; Glazer: $27.97M; Taylor: $27.96M — the Glazer and Taylor totals driven largely by ~$21.2M Feb 2025 RSU grants). No annual bonuses were paid to NEOs for 2025. Karp's separately-reported "compensation actually paid" — which marks unvested equity to market — was about $11.1B for 2025. Insider sale dollar totals should be checked directly on EDGAR Form 4 filings; specific share-counts in earlier drafts were not sourced.
Primary sources:
2026 DEF 14A (FY2025) ·
SEC Form 4 filings ·
Fortune — CAP analysis ·
AFL-CIO Paywatch ·
Equilar/AP CEO Pay Study ·
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Methodology — how this site sources and verifies
read this first
Last verified
Jun 2026
across all panels
Primary sources
SEC · LDA · FEC
EDGAR, OpenSecrets, court records
Editorial layer
Labelled
framing tags, watch levels — not reporting
Corrections
Welcomed
via the contact form below
Source standards
S1
Compensation, equity, and insider sales
Drawn from Palantir's DEF 14A proxy statements, 10-K annual reports, and Form 4 insider transaction filings on SEC EDGAR. Specific share-count claims that could not be tied to a Form 4 in earlier drafts were removed.
S2
Lobbying spend & political donations
Annual lobbying totals from OpenSecrets calculations of Senate Office of Public Records (LDA) filings. PAC and personal donations from FEC filings. Personal political giving by founders is reported separately from corporate spending.
S3
Litigation & regulatory action
Federal cases verified via PACER dockets and named plaintiff/defense filings. Securities-investigation announcements drawn from named plaintiff firms' press releases. Regulatory pressure (NHS FDP, ICE) sourced to named advocacy organisations and investigative outlets, with each criticism attached to its source.
S4
Contracts & deal values
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S5
Quotes
Only direct quotations from named, on-record settings: earnings calls, on-stage interviews, signed op-eds, court filings, or shareholder letters. Earlier drafts contained quotes attributed to unsourced "leaks" or paraphrased generically; those have been removed.
Reported vs. editorial
R
Reported (sourced fact)
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E
Editorial (framing layer)
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What this site is not
N1
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N2
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N3
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N4
Not a complete dossier
Coverage is selective: panels surface contracts, filings, and figures that are publicly documented. Many Palantir activities — including most international and intelligence-community work — are not reflected here because the public record on them is thin.
Corrections
C
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PalantirWatch is operated independently as an educational open-source-intelligence project. The site's editorial perspective is critical of expansive government data-analytics partnerships generally and of Palantir's specific role in immigration enforcement, healthcare data, and battlefield AI in particular; that perspective is acknowledged here rather than concealed in the framing.