Vice-President JD Vance is already being discussed as a potential Republican candidate for the 2028 presidential election, with Donald Trump reportedly calling a ticket of Vance and Marco Rubio 'unstoppable'. However, as scrutiny intensifies, Vance's close ties to the data analytics company Palantir are emerging as a significant political liability.
Vance owes much of his political rise to Peter Thiel, the billionaire co-founder of Palantir, who hired him at his investment firm Mithril Capital in 2016 and spent $15m on his Senate campaign. Critics see Vance as a proxy for Thiel, who has stated he does not 'believe that freedom and democracy are compatible'. Palantir, valued at $450bn, holds contracts with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to improve 'deportation logistics' and is building an 'ImmigrationOS' for real-time tracking of self-deportation.
The company has also been accused of providing predictive policing technology to Israel's military, with a UN report finding 'reasonable grounds to believe Palantir has provided automatic predictive policing technology' and core defence infrastructure. When co-founder Alex Karp was heckled over Palestinian deaths, he responded: 'Mostly terrorists, that's true.'
While many potential Vance voters may not care about Palestinian issues, they are increasingly wary of big tech and surveillance. Influential podcasters like Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson have voiced concerns about Palantir's role in gathering personal data on American citizens. Rogan called it 'kinda creepy' and asked who authorised the creation of 'detailed profiles of American citizens'.
Vance acknowledged the issue during a university talk, saying: 'I get asked about Palantir a lot because there's this internet meme out there that somehow I am super in bed with Palantir.' Despite his shape-shifting political persona, his deep entanglement with the company may prove harder to shake as 2028 approaches.
