The Rise of Louis Mosley as Palantir's Public Face
The hall was packed with rightwing radicals when Louis Mosley heralded a coming revolution. Just as Oliver Cromwell – that “crusader for Christ and liberty” – routed King Charles I’s royalists, “a similar revolution is brewing today”, said the UK and Europe boss of
Palantir. Globalism’s “twilight” was upon us, he said in a speech dotted with admiring mentions of the podcaster Joe Rogan and “Elon’s Doge”.
Palantir's Controversial Stance and Mosley's Role
It was not a typical peroration for a big UK government contractor with more than £600m in deals with the NHS, the Ministry of Defence and police. But
Palantir, the world’s most controversial tech company, is no typical contractor. In recent years it has gained firm footholds across Britain’s public sector while appalling critics with its leadership’s
rightwing rhetoric and its
work for the US and Israeli militaries and Donald Trump’s
ICE immigration crackdown.
Mosley's Background and Connection to Palantir
Mosley is an important figure at
Palantir. He is not trained as a technologist, but worked in Tory politics, including spells as an assistant to Rory Stewart and as a councillor in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. He read history at Oxford where he met his wife, Nura Khan, a fashion editor, with whom he has four children. He is more likely to be seen reading biographies – Aneurin Bevan and Stalin have been recent subjects – than coding manuals.
The Challenges Facing Mosley and Palantir
Calls are growing for Keir Starmer’s government to cut its ties with the company that was co-founded by the Trump-backing tech billionaire Peter Thiel. It means Mosley has become a lightning rod for public fear of a US tech takeover of the British state. It has fallen to him to fight back. Almost daily his boyish features can be seen defending
Palantir against its critics on
X.com, on podcasts and on BBC News sofas.
The Future of Palantir and Mosley's Role
Mosley has embraced the foundational idea of
Palantir, launched after 9/11 to help the US win the war on terror. It was named after the all-seeing crystal stones from The Lord of the Rings, which, as Mosley later explained, “are made by the goodies – by elves – but they fall into the hands of the baddies – the wizards – and they get used for evil purposes”. It is, said Mosley, a constant reminder that “you’re building a very, very powerful tool, and in the wrong hands, very powerful tools can be extremely dangerous. But in the right hands, they can be used to do extraordinarily good things.”