How Palantir Profits from Genocide – and Why Australia Must Walk Away
Dedicated to my wife, who knows evil by the way it behaves.
I. The Company That Kills Enemies
Alex Karp, the CEO of Palantir Technologies, does not hide what his company does. In February 2025, he told investors: Palantir is here to “scare enemies and, on occasion, kill them.” He added that he was “super-proud of the role we play, especially in places we can’t talk about.”
This is not hyperbole. It is a confession.
Palantir’s technology has been used to compile kill lists in Gaza, to track migrants for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and to select targets for drone strikes in Iran. The same systems that optimise workforce spend in Australian supermarkets are being used to select human targets for assassination.
Karp has acknowledged that he is directly involved in killing Palestinians in Gaza but insisted the dead were “mostly terrorists.” He does not provide evidence. He does not need to. The label is the weapon.
In March 2026, a UN report by Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese singled out Palantir as one of the companies “profiting from genocide” during Israel’s 21-month campaign in Gaza. The report, titled “From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide,” concluded that “Israel’s genocide continues because it is profitable for too many.”
This is the company that the Australian government, Coles, Rio Tinto, Westpac, and the Future Fund have chosen to do business with.
II. The Champions: Peter Thiel and Alex Karp
Peter Thiel is the billionaire co-founder of Palantir. He has funded right-wing political causes, including the campaign of Donald Trump. He has spoken of democracy as incompatible with freedom. He has said that he no longer believes that freedom and democracy are compatible.
Alex Karp is the CEO. He has a PhD in philosophy from the University of Frankfurt. He studied under Jürgen Habermas. He knows what he is doing. He has chosen.
Karp has co-authored a book, The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West, in which he articulates his vision of American global dominance through AI-driven warfare. He calls for a new Manhattan Project focused on military AI. He openly celebrates the destruction his company enables.
In an interview with Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, Karp summed up his philosophy:
“I actually am a progressive. I want less war. You only stop war by having the best technology and by scaring the bejabers – I’m trying to be nice here – out of our adversaries.”
Reality is anything but that simple. Palantir’s technology has reportedly been used to kill tens of thousands of people in Gaza and beyond, including many who had nothing to do with Hamas.
These men are not evil because they are monsters. They are evil because they have chosen to be. They have chosen profit over people. They have chosen power over compassion. They have chosen control over love.
III. Palantir in Australia: The Red Carpet
Palantir has been embedded in Australian institutions for years. The company has secured more than $50 million in Australian government contracts since 2013, largely across defence and national security-related agencies. Its clients include:
- The Department of Defence
- The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission
- The Australian Signals Directorate
- The Victorian Department of Justice
In November 2025, Palantir received a high-level Australian government security assessment – the “protected level” under the Information Security Registered Assessors Programme – enabling a broader range of government agencies to use its Foundry and AI platform.
In a Senate debate on March 10, 2026, a Senator Lambie warned that the government was “simply rolling out the red carpet to companies like Palantir, the company that has been linked, by the way, to the targeted killing of journalists and the illegal use of US citizens’ data.” The Senator noted that Palantir is “the leader in the development of agentic AI – artificial intelligence that thinks for itself and makes its own decisions.”
IV. The Coles Partnership: Ten Billion Rows of Data
In 2024, Palantir announced a three-year partnership with Coles Supermarkets. Coles will leverage Palantir’s Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP) across its more than 840 supermarkets to better understand and address workforce-related spend. The system will identify opportunities over “10 billion rows of data.”
Coles is also rolling out ChatGPT to its corporate teams, powered by OpenAI’s GPT-5 model.
This is the same technology. The same algorithms. The same logic.
But what is being optimised? Profit. Not people. Not safety. Not justice.
The same technology that optimises workforce spend in Australian supermarkets is the same technology that selects targets in Gaza and Iran. The same algorithms that track workers track enemies. The same logic that cuts labour costs cuts lives.
Coles Chief Operating Officer Matt Swindells said the partnership would allow store managers to make “real-time decisions to optimise costs.” He did not mention that those same real-time decisions are being made in Gaza – to optimise kills.
V. The Future Fund: $103 Million in Blood Money
Australia’s Future Fund – the sovereign wealth fund designed to manage and grow public funds – has a $103 million stake in Palantir. That is bigger than the fund’s holdings in Australian companies like AGL, Seek, or data centre owner NEXTDC.
In Senate estimates, Greens Senator Barbara Pocock asked whether Palantir’s human rights record had been considered before the investments were made. The answer: no.
Will Hetherton, the chief corporate affairs officer of the Future Fund, told the committee that the fund doesn’t get involved in selecting individual stocks and that the shares are held through index funds. When asked whether the fund would commit to divesting and establishing “clear ethical investment standards that exclude companies profiting from surveillance, from weapons and from human suffering,” Hetherton said the board would “continue to engage with our managers” but couldn’t commit to what Pocock was asking.
The fund’s justification is that it only excludes companies based on sanctions or treaties the Australian government has ratified – like cluster munitions, anti-personnel mines and tobacco. None of these apply to Palantir.
This is not a defence. It is a confession.
VI. The UK Precedent: “No Gaza Genocide Links in Our NHS”
In the United Kingdom, a coalition of organisations – including Amnesty International UK, Medact, and Healthcare Workers for a Free Palestine – is calling on NHS England to terminate its £330 million contract with Palantir.
Kerry Moscogiuri, Chief Executive of Amnesty International UK, said:
“The NHS constitution states that it belongs to the people, underpinned by core values of compassionate care, dignity and humanity. Those principles must apply not only to doctors and nurses, but also to the companies the NHS chooses to contract with using taxpayers’ money. Any company contributing to human rights violations should have no place at the heart of our NHS. Our message is simple: no Gaza genocide links in our NHS.”
The groups are calling on the UK government to terminate the contract, responsibly divest public sector institutions from Palantir, and introduce binding ethical standards for public sector technology procurement.
If the United Kingdom can demand this, why can’t Australia?
VII. The UN Report: Profiting from Genocide
The June 2025 UN report by Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, is damning. It singles out Palantir alongside Lockheed Martin, Caterpillar, Volvo, and major banks for profiting from Israel’s campaign in Gaza.
The report concludes that “Israel’s genocide continues because it is profitable for too many.”
Albanese urges:
- Sanctions and an arms embargo on Israel
- Investigations by the International Criminal Court and national courts into corporate complicity in war crimes
- Accountability modelled on the IG Farben trials after World War Two
She warns that “passive suppliers become deliberate contributors to a system of displacement.”
The Australian government, Coles, and the Future Fund are not passive suppliers. They are deliberate contributors.
VIII. The Kill Chain in Gaza and Iran
The same systems tested in Gaza are now being deployed in Iran.
The Washington Post reported that the US military in Iran has “leveraged the most advanced artificial intelligence it’s ever used in warfare.” Palantir’s Maven Smart System reportedly helped US commanders select 1,000 Iranian targets during the war’s first 24 hours alone.
The Asia Times reports that “similarities between Israel’s bombing of Gaza and Tehran are growing stronger,” with experts warning of a “lack of human supervision over Israeli AI targeting in Iran.”
An Israeli intelligence source described the AI system as transforming the IDF into a “mass assassination factory” where the “emphasis is on quantity and not quality” of kills.
This is the technology that Coles is using to “optimise” workforce spend.
IX. The Choice
This is not an economic choice. It is a choice about what is right.
The Australian government has a choice. It can continue to roll out the red carpet to Palantir, to accept the $50 million in contracts, to allow the Future Fund to hold $103 million in shares.
Or it can walk away.
Coles has a choice. It can continue to use Palantir’s AIP to optimise workforce spend – to identify opportunities over 10 billion rows of data.
Or it can walk away.
The Future Fund has a choice. It can continue to hold Palantir shares, to defend the investment with procedural excuses.
Or it can divest.
The UK is demanding that the NHS terminate its contract with Palantir. Amnesty International is leading the campaign. Medact and healthcare workers are standing up.
What is Australia doing? Rolling out the red carpet.
X. A Call to Action
The Australian government must:
- Terminate all contracts with Palantir.
- Introduce binding ethical standards for public sector technology procurement.
- Investigate whether Palantir’s technology has been used to violate Australian privacy laws.
- Divest the Future Fund from Palantir.
Coles must:
- Terminate its partnership with Palantir.
- Pledge not to use AI systems linked to human rights violations.
- Be transparent about its use of AI in workforce management.
The Future Fund must:
- Divest from Palantir.
- Establish clear ethical investment standards that exclude companies profiting from surveillance, weapons, and human suffering.
The Australian people must:
- Demand accountability.
- Ask their politicians: Why is our government doing business with a company that profits from genocide?
- Support campaigns for ethical technology procurement.
XI. A Final Word
Alex Karp said: “Our work in the region has never been more vital. And it will continue.”
It must not continue. Not in Gaza. Not in Iran. Not in Australia.
The same technology that kills children in Gaza is optimising shift rosters in Coles supermarkets. The same algorithms that track migrants for ICE are tracking Australian workers. The same logic that cuts labour costs cuts lives.
The wire is being cut. The garden is growing. The small gods are running out of time.
And Palantir? It will be remembered as the company that chose profit over humanity.
Australia must choose differently.
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The sick and filthy USA, home to shitsouled perverted supremacist arseholes, has, in Palantir, a HITLERIAN DREAM of unrestrained uberkill, where the dud worms of serfdom can get stuffed dead or alive for filthy vanity, profits, controls, mastery, grand elevation as if chosen, destined, beyond reasoned control, a MASTER Masturbatory Mancave. POX. All superstitious idiocy stinks, supremacist arseholes…immediate elimination of this class of triumphal and anti-social misfits is highly desirable. The mass of people need this liberation from maggotry, threat.
SUPPORT AMNESTY – SACK PALANTIR
The year 2013 was notable for the retirement of Tony Windsor, much respected MP for New England, and the unwelcome return of Beetrooter Joyce by those same voters now happy to learn that some Tamworth ladies staged a political coup to replace the misogynist boys club of the Tamworth branch of the NOtional$ and FINALLY declare that they wanted representation of the voters rather than alcoholism, philandering self-service and misogyny.
The other political event was the election of the Toxic RAbbott COALition misgovernment with considerable assistance from the Murdochracy Media Manipulation Monopoly, proving that a fresh cow-pat with a sprig of parsley can easily be sold as a meat pie in regional Australia. So ended Parliament representing the voters while politicians did deals to secure their post-politics careers in foreign owned multinational corporations, especially in the mining industry.
Naturally the COALition purchased Palantir AI because that was demanded by the Americans, just like the US Collins Class subs previously replaced the RAN preferred European destroyers.
Never let it be said that Australia is an independent democratic country because the obvious facts (for those prepared to look for them) is that successive governments have sold Australians to any entity in the world, especially the USA (Undemocratic Sewer of Apartheid), that will exploit our very lax taxation system for financial benefit.
And this is a big part of why I don’t want Vance as USAnian president. He’s Thiel’s front man, and Thiel is as batshit crazy as Trump in an even worse way.
Ieefe, I agree totally, Vance has shown he is prepared to prostitute himself for any cause in the pursuit of power; he would likely continue to do so to maintain a grip on power.
With no small touch of poetic justice Trump has been undermining entirely any support Vance had – sending Vance to Hungary to bolster Orban’s losing campaign (including an embarrassing failure in a live phone hookup during a rally), attacking the Pope (Vance is a converted catholic), and the doomed to fail peace talks in Islamabad (Vance was sent with terms the Iranians were never going to accept.) Vance is now associated with failure, not just in those instances but also failure in moderating Trump’s interventionalist actions.
Just the other day Vance fronted a rally at a huge venue, originally with Erica Kirk, but only a miniscule audience turned up (literally in the dozens) – Kirk pulled out in the end, possibly to avoid the embarrassment of speaking to masses of empty rows of seats.
May Vance’s standing sink even further as he is a threat to society.
Obviously, collecting data is vital to Palantir. Concrete structures are being built in Gaza so that the Israelis can force Gazans seeking food to be channeled into chutes so that their biometrics can be assessed. It seems that collecting biometrics is an important part Palantir’s programs.
As best I can tell Labor just handed over our personal biometrics to the Trump administration, and I would imagine with the contracts being signed to the “we kill enemies” Spy firm Palantir; what could possibly go wrong?
“The dead were terrorists” or “mostly terrorists” or they were Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, ISIS, or some other anti-government group of choice. Why are we willngly accepting that it is OK to bomb a hospital, school, apartment building because there were reports that a group of terrorists were, or might be using it.
We must insist on the rule of law taking primacy. People accused of terrorism, what ever it may be in reality, must be subjected to the normal legal processes, not simply exterminated on someone’s sayso. No one, or group of people or bystanders should be summarily killed or injured, nor should buildings and facilities be deloberately destroyed or damaged.
Whether or not it can be pursued through the courts at the present time, it is important that these things be named as war crimes which will in the future be prosecuted as such and the perpetrators on the ground, and those who gave the orders need to be named as War Criminals
Well said Lyndal.
One of the problems though is the US undermining of the ICJ, ICC and the UN itself. You are spot on to call for the pursuit of these war crimes through the courts, but we need to, through our governments, at the same time, rally support for the institutions that will do that.