Palantir Waves the Flag and Embraces Its U.S. Government Roots
The company, chaired by billionaire Peter Thiel, is pitching itself as a weapon of the U.S. and its allies.
Palantir Technologies Inc. spent the past decade trying to shed its image as a tool of the U.S. government and sell its data-mining software to businesses. But in its pitch to institutional investors ahead of a public stock debut, the company will return to its roots.
A prospectus published Tuesday to list Palantir shares on the New York Stock Exchange opened with a letter from Alex Karp, the chief executive officer who started the company with billionaire Peter Thiel. Passages from Karp’s missive read like they were taken from the script of a USO tour. It opens with comments about “our welfare and security,” trumpets work with the U.S. and its allies and concludes with a prediction that software like Palantir’s will ensure “the strength and survival of democratic forms of government.”