Technology

Palantir-linked campaign donations put Democrats in tight spot

by Julia Shapero and Miranda Nazzaro - 04/03/26 6:00 AM ET

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by Julia Shapero and Miranda Nazzaro - 04/03/26 6:00 AM ET

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Campaign contributions from Palantir are becoming a thorn in the side of Democrats in the midterms, as lawmakers on the left dig into the Trump administration’s immigration efforts and the controversial tech company’s involvement.

Several Democratic candidates have returned or donated funds from top Palantir executives and the company’s political action committee (PAC), distancing themselves from the controversy over the firm’s sizable contracts with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The data analytics and software giant’s PAC and several top executives have donated to candidates in both parties for years, but its contributions are presenting new challenges for Democrats, who are criticizing enforcement tactics and surveillance technology while also running for office and collecting campaign funds.

A campaign spokesperson for Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), who returned a $2,500 donation from the Employees of Palantir PAC earlier this year, told The Hill “we don’t want” Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel’s “money and we don’t want his surveillance in our streets.”

The donation, made to Moulton’s congressional committee before he launched a bid for Sen. Ed Markey’s (D-Mass). seat, was returned to the PAC in early January, campaign finance filings show.

“As soon as we learned Palantir’s tech was being used against the very community Seth stood beside in Minnesota, we purged their past donations from our books,” the spokesperson told The Hill.

Concerns about ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP)’s crackdown on immigration reached a boiling point in Minnesota earlier this year, when the White House ramped up the presence of immigration officers in the state. Two U.S. citizens, Alex Pretti and Renee Good, were shot and killed by federal agents in separate incidents in January, amplifying criticism of President Trump’s immigration policy.

As midterm season gets underway, Democrats are seizing on the falling popularity of Trump’s immigration agenda and the companies enlisted to help. Palantir is at the center of this debate, with lawmakers and immigration advocates raising concerns over broader surveillance and privacy implications of the technology.

Palantir, a longtime federal contractor, has scored several high-profile contracts in Trump’s second term, including a $30 million deal with ICE to build an “Immigration Lifestyle Operating System” and a $1 billion purchasing agreement with DHS.

In the face of Palantir’s reputational challenges, several Democratic candidates have pledged not to take future funds tied to the company or donated contributions to advocacy groups.

“A lot of Democrats are relying very heavily on political mobilization based on the outrage with ICE and the administration,” political strategist Basil Smikle told The Hill. “The questions around why candidates are taking that money and the relationship that they have with these interests is going to become much more important and relevant in these individual campaigns.”

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said in late February he would no longer take such contributions. Khanna also donated the $49,000 he received from Palantir executives — including the company’s chief technology officer Shyam Sankar, chief technology officer for U.S. government work Akash Jain and head of government affairs Mehdi Alhassani — since 2011.

“I am proud to be the first Bay Area member to take the pledge to refuse all future individual contributions from Palantir,” Khanna said last month. “This quarter, I have donated all of the contributions I have ever received from Palantir executives — not just from this cycle.”

Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) also stopped accepting donations from Palantir employees since the company secured a contract to “develop an extensive surveillance platform for ICE last year,” a spokesperson for the senator’s reelection campaign told The Hill on Wednesday.

He is donating previous Palantir-linked funds to non-profits that provide legal assistance, shelter and other services to immigrants in Colorado, the spokesperson added. Campaign finance filings show he received about $51,000 from Sankar, Jain, Alhassani and Palantir CEO Alex Karp between 2020 and 2025.

Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) similarly pledged to donate Palantir-linked funds after The Colorado Sun inquired about the campaign contributions in February. He received $48,600 from the same four executives over the last five years, according to campaign finance filings