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Thirteen former employees of Palantir Technologies have publicly condemned the company’s role in a $30 million deal to provide near real-time tracking of migrants to US immigration authorities, raising serious ethical questions over AI deployment and employee influence.
In a letter shared with NPR, the former staffers, ranging from software engineers to privacy and civil liberties specialists, criticised Palantir’s agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The contract, struck just weeks ago, gives ICE access to tools that compile, visualise, and interpret vast datasets to monitor migrant movements inside the United States.
The employees, who say they were drawn to the firm by its stated mission to protect the vulnerable and develop artificial intelligence responsibly, now argue that the company’s core principles have been undermined.
“These principles have now been violated and are rapidly being dismantled at Palantir Technologies and across Silicon Valley,” they wrote.
Though Palantir and the White House did not respond to requests for comment, the company’s CEO Alex Karp and co-founder Peter Thiel (an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump) have positioned the firm as a powerful data tool provider for law enforcement and military operations globally.
AI ethics and civil liberties in conflict
The open letter marks a rare and significant break from a company where secrecy is the norm and many former employees are bound by non-disparagement agreements. Despite Palantir’s nearly $300 billion market valuation, those who left the company are sounding the alarm on what they see as dangerous uses of its technology.
Their concern centres on AI’s role in accelerating immigration enforcement under the Trump administration, where mass deportation efforts are reportedly underway. The former employees highlight broader threats to democratic norms, including biometric data collection on minors, suppression of science programmes, and curtailment of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts.
The group warns that Big Tech - Palantir included - is enabling authoritarian shifts “under the guise of a ‘revolution’ led by oligarchs,” adding that they hope to trigger a “domino effect” of resistance within the sector.
DEI rollback and culture war concerns grow
The letter also singles out Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has hired several Palantir alumni to aid in what critics describe as a dismantling of federal agencies and DEI frameworks. The ex-employees accuse DOGE of fostering “injustices… facilitated by the very software infrastructure we help build.”
They cite Palantir CEO Karp’s inflammatory remarks - once joking that Wall Street analysts should be sprayed with fentanyl-laced urine - as symbolic of what they call the company’s “increasingly violent rhetoric.”
The ex-employees urge peers in the tech industry to take a stand before more institutions adopt surveillance-driven tools with limited ethical oversight.
“We must resist this trend,” the letter concludes, “and work against the dangerous path in the history of technology we are currently heading down towards.”
