Palantir was born in the shadow of the CIA. Its earliest backing came through In-Q-Tel, the agency’s venture arm, and its engineers worked with intelligence officials. From the start, the company wasn’t dreaming up gadgets for the masses but designing tools to hunt terrorists, track insurgent networks, and filter oceans of raw data for hidden patterns. It was built for surveillance, not style.
And yet, two decades later, the same company that grew out of Langley’s orbit now wants to sell itself as a lifestyle brand. Alongside contracts with the Pentagon and ICE, it’s peddling tote bags and hoodies. The shift is jarring but deliberate. Palantir knows its name carries a chill. Cold, clinical, intimidating. By stitching it onto cotton, the company hopes to soften the blow and make surveillance look less like control and more like a casual accessory. But Palantir is no lifestyle brand. It isn't Patagonia or Supreme. It doesn't depend on trends or style. It relies on data—collecting it, analyzing it, and turning it into profit. The more detailed the information, the higher the profit. The more intrusive the system, the more essential the sale becomes.
Palantir only grows if it sees deeper into people’s lives. It feeds on information—where you move, who you meet, what you buy, how you vote, even what you whisper to yourself when you think no one’s listening. Its reach is relentless because its revenue depends on reach. If you’re not careful, your daily life becomes its database. Its software tracks migrants, coordinates drone strikes, and maps potential enemies. What began inside government has now spread into corporate life. Banks, hospitals, shipping firms and police departments have adopted Palantir’s systems. Each contract cast a wider net. Each new partnership pulled more of civilian life into its dragline. But a logo on a sleeve doesn’t change the fabric of what Palantir does. Its business model isn’t lifestyle, but lifeblood—the lifeblood of surveillance.
Americans must ask: do they want their democracy wired into a grid of perpetual observation? Data isn’t neutral when it’s harvested at scale and filtered through software designed to predict, to police, to punish. The promise of safety can easily become the practice of suspicion. What begins as counterterrorism abroad becomes crime prediction at home. What begins as supply chain oversight becomes worker monitoring. The tools migrate, and once they migrate, they rarely retreat.
This isn’t hypothetical. Predictive policing programs have already turned entire cities into testing grounds for constant monitoring. Immigration databases have ensnared lawful residents and citizens alongside those they claim to target. Palantir sits at the center of this machinery, providing the platforms that make such sweeping oversight possible.
The danger’s subtle because it’s dressed in efficiency. Palantir markets itself as a partner in solving problems: managing resources, streamlining services, preventing crime. Who would argue against efficiency? Yet efficiency without limits slides into control without consent. When everything becomes data, everyone becomes suspect. That’s the quiet bargain being pushed, stylish bag in hand.
There’s also something cynical about this new branding push. Lifestyle brands build communities around shared identity—whether that’s outdoor exploration, urban chic or street rebellion. Palantir has no such identity to offer. It can’t sell adventure or style. Its only community is the community of the observed. By selling clothing, it’s trying to mask what it really sells: access to the inner lives of tens of millions of people.
Americans must resist this normalization. A company that profits by cataloging human behavior doesn’t deserve to be worn like a badge of pride. Every hoodie, every t-shirt, every slogan is an attempt to launder its reputation. It’s a performance of belonging, designed to make you forget that its real business is burrowing into your existence.
We’re at a crossroads. Either citizens recognize that some firms can’t be domesticated by consumer culture, or they watch as control seeps into the routines of everyday life. The more Palantir’s allowed to brand itself as ordinary, the more extraordinary its power will grow.
Don’t be fooled, America. Some logos belong on labels, not on lives.