JD Vance headshot over Palantir logo and American flag

Andrea Austria / Media Matters

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“President mass surveillance”: Right-leaning media are calling out JD Vance’s ties to Palantir

Amid an emerging divide over mass surveillance, some right-leaning figures are openly uncomfortable with the Trump administration's close links to Palantir

Written by Noah VanDowe & Ben Van Bloem

Published

As the Trump administration expands its use of the tech company Palantir across multiple agencies and departments within the federal government, some right-leaning media figures are expressing anger and fear about a “surveillance state,” placing a particular focus on Vice President JD Vance’s close ties to the Silicon Valley data management company.

Warning of a future “President Palantir,” these right-leaning commentators have slammed Vance as a “pawn” of “the ultimate deep staters” like Palantir co-founders Peter Thiel and Alex Karp. They have also suggested that the goal of such tech companies is to make it so Americans cannot “live or do anything that feels human.” Other conservative figures have dismissed these concerns, arguing they will cause America to “lose” the artificial intelligence race to China. 

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  • Vance has deep ties to Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel, whose company the Trump administration tapped for administrative data collection

    • Palantir makes software that searches through and organizes large datasets — and as a U.S. government contractor, that could include sensitive information about every American. Wired notes, “The software firm's work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the US Department of Defense, and the Israeli military has sparked numerous protests in multiple countries.” [Wired, 8/11/25; Inc., 11/3/25]
    • Trump chose Palantir to help “share data across agencies,” creating the possibility of a “master list of personal information on Americans that could give him untold surveillance power.” The apparent goal of the administration is to have Palantir compile a merged database that would include — but not be limited to — a person’s student debt, wages, bank account number, biometric data, and disability status. That information is currently siloed in different agencies, and experts warn that a merged database could be used by government actors to target political enemies, dissidents, and marginalized communities. [The New York Times, 5/30/25, 4/9/25; The Guardian, 6/30/25]
    • Palantir was co-founded by Peter Thiel, who hired Vance to his investment firm in 2017 and donated $15 million to a super PAC supporting the future vice president’s 2022 Ohio Senate campaign. As reported by CBS, “In 2019 Vance moved back to his native Ohio, where he started his own venture capitalist firm, heavily backed by Thiel and other elite tech investors. By then he was flirting with a potential run for elective office, and Thiel was encouraging him. … Thiel brought Vance to his very first meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in February 2021, according to the New York Times.” [CBS News, 7/16/24; Mother Jones, 7/23/25]
    • As the Trump administration’s ties with Palantir deepened last year, right-wing figures and podcasters lashed out, suggesting the company is “spying on us” and serves as “the backbone infrastructure of the Mark of the Beast.” War Room host and former Trump strategist Steve Bannon called Palantir “the villain in the AI” space, while former Fox host Tucker Carlson warned that “the technology, not just Palantir but all the emerging technology … it could be used to enslave the population really easily.” [Media Matters, 11/10/25]

  • Right-leaning figures are lashing out against Palantir’s political activities and potential role in “state surveillance”

    • On The Alex Jones Show, former Trump official Joe Kent suggested Palantir could be “waiting in the wings” to “drop in some kind of state surveillance.” Host Harrison Smith asked whether it is “dangerous to have Palantir, this, you know, AI technology sort of insinuating itself into ICE and the warfighting capabilities — are you suspicious of how this may be used in the future when another administration comes in, that we’re maybe building a very powerful, tyrannical technology?” Kent responded, “I am, and I feel that way about AI in general. And giving that central node, whether it's Palantir or somebody else, to the federal government, it's scary. I mean, it’s very dangerous.” [Infowars, The Alex Jones Show, 3/30/26]
    • Podcaster Joe Rogan on Palantir calling for universal national military service: “Why the fuck would a tech company be saying that? ... How about fuck you, you go.” Rogan continued, “None of these tech dorks that are running these companies, they're not doing it. Like, what are you talking about? Throwing meat into the machine, throwing people's children into these unnecessary wars. Fuck you.” [Fortune, 4/20/26; YouTube, The Joe Rogan Experience, 5/14/26] 
    • On Stew Peters’ podcast, conspiracy theorist Jake Shields mentioned Palantir as part of a mechanism by Jewish people to force “us to live as slaves.” Shields said, “Look what they do in Palestine. That's a testing ground, I think, for all of us, through drones, Palantir, surveillance. I think, ultimately, what these people want is for us to live as slaves.” [Southern Poverty Law Center, accessed 6/25/26, 4/11/25; Rumble, The Stew Peters Show, 5/8/26]
    • Podcaster Theo Von warned that because of “Flock cameras or some company like this, Palantir, one of these companies is going to be owning all of this information,” and Americans will not “be able to live or do anything that feels human.” [YouTube, This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von, 6/21/26] 
    • Von and guest John Kiriakou criticized data centers, with Kiriakou warning that the projects are “intel-related” and backed by “Palantir and Nvidia and Abraxas and all these big companies that either took CIA investments to get started as seed money, or are staffed by retired senior CIA officers — they’re not doing it for their health.” Kiriakou continued, “This new compound in Utah that NSA has built has enough memory storage space for every phone call, every email, and every text message from every American for the next 500 years.” [YouTube, This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von, 6/5/26] 

  • Some commentators criticized Vance for being a “pawn of Palantir,” warning he will institute a “super surveillance state”

    • Right-wing influencer Alex Stein suggested that future elections could be “fake” and he therefore “wouldn't be surprised if JD Vance wins, the Palantir president.” On the Gray Area podcast, Stein mocked Vance’s potential supporters, saying, “You're going to have all these MAGA people like, oh, I'm so happy we have a digital currency. I'm so happy we have a social credit score so we can kick them Mexicans out of here, even though they're going to be the ones that shut off your car for not getting the vaccine.” [Rumble, Gray Area, 1/26/26] 
    • On the NXR Podcast, white nationalist Nick Fuentes said, “If Vance is a pawn of Palantir and Anduril, which are defense contractors and intelligence contractors, wouldn't the deep state prefer Vance over Trump?” Fuentes: “And in particular, what will he do? Give them the federal contracts, give them favorable regulation, get their personnel inside the Department of War, inside the administration. And then eventually he'll be the president and have even more power.” [Southern Poverty Law Center, accessed 6/25/26; NXR Podcast, 2/25/26, 2/25/26] 
    • Steve Bannon said that Vance is “a creation of” Thiel’s political efforts to make “a surveillance state.” Bannon continued, “They try to put a false front of patriotism and nationalism when they’re anything but — these guys are the ultimate deep staters. They provide the surveillance apparatus to take the deep state to a much darker place than it already is.” [Real America’s Voice, War Room, 4/21/26] 
    • Fuentes complained that Vance is “totally unacceptable” as a presidential candidate because of “his connections with Palantir.” [Rumble, America First, 5/7/26]
    • Stew Peters: If Trump is impeached, Vance will “make Vice President Palantir body-snatcher turn into President Palantir body-snatcher and preside over the Alex Karp-Peter Thiel AI takeover of everything, along with, of course, the rest of the criminals in Big Tech.” Peters warned, “If you think that data centers right now are a problem, just imagine JD Vance becoming president.” [Rumble, The Stew Peters Show, 5/7/26]
    • Bannon suggested that “JD Vance, and Peter Thiel, and [Palantir CEO Alex] Karp, and all these guys are in bed with China and the Chinese Communist Party.” [Real America’s Voice, War Room, 5/8/26] 
    • Peters: Vance is “going to be President Palantir because he is going to be president mass surveillance state, super surveillance state. That’s JD Vance. That’s why Peter Thiel has funded him, has created him.” [Rumble, The Stew Peters Show, 5/14/26] 
    • Right-wing influencer Amrou Fudl, known online as Myron Gaines, said “JD Vance’s entire political career is astroturfed,” adding, “I don’t like these Palantir people.” Fudl continued, “I don't like Peter Thiel. … JD Vance throws me off, OK? And I also — I don’t like the other idiot that runs Palantir, right? This guy right here — the worst. Alex Karp. The worst.” [Mediaite, 12/22/25; Kick, MyronGainesX, 5/7/26] 
    • Podcaster Tim Dillon criticized a clip of Vance discussing concerns about AI and mass surveillance, arguing the vice president is “sponsored by the tech CEOs and data centers.” Dillon said that the Trump administration wanted Palantir to “merge all of the databases that collect information on you — the federal government’s databases, whether it’s concerning health issues or criminal justice issues,” adding, “What the hell’s that? What would that be used for — birthday cards?” [YouTube, The Tim Dillon Show, 6/20/26, 6/20/26] 
    • On The Joe Rogan Experience, Dillon said Vance and other figures in the Trump administration are engaging in “a little bit of gaslighting” over AI and mass surveillance: “It’s almost like China will enslave you. Let us do it first.” Dillon explained, “My worry is that in the guise of fighting China, we’re going to become China. So I would take the government a lot more seriously if they weren't, you know, potentially like, saying Palantir should merge all these different government databases so your health data and your criminal justice data and your tax data all merges. And who’s doing that? Palantir. … So when Vance comes out and he goes I'm worried about a credit score. It's like, OK. Hey, buddy. Me too. What the hell is this?” [YouTube, The Joe Rogan Experience, 6/24/26] 

  • Other right-leaning media platformed defenses of Palantir and dismissed concerns about surveillance programs

    • The All-In Podcast hosted Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar to “respond” to worries about “Palantir powering a surveillance state.” Sankar insisted, “We don't collect data. We don't have any data. It'd be like accusing Excel of being a surveillance tool.” The CEO of Palantir, Alex Karp, was similarly invited to participate in a summit run by the All-In Podcast last year. [YouTube, All-In Podcast, 4/6/26, 9/9/25]
    • Daily Wire host Ben Shapiro criticized the idea that “Palantir is the Antichrist,” arguing “we’ll just lose” the AI competition with China. Reading a post from Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin, Shapiro complained, “So Palantir is the Antichrist. And now, if you buy into this entire shtick, if you buy into the idea that AI as a technology must be destroyed, it won't be destroyed. We'll just lose. If you think that China is going to forgo AI, you're a fool. They're not.” [The Daily Wire, The Ben Shapiro Show, 4/21/26] 
    • On The Rubin Report, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale claimed, “If they'd had Palantir, it would have been very easy to stop 9/11. That was the whole point.” [Forbes, accessed 6/25/26; YouTube, The Rubin Report, 5/9/26]