How Palantir is becoming embedded in major newsroom operations
Palantir is among the most controversial technology companies of the modern era. Its clients include US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), the US Army, police, intelligence, and security agencies in multiple European countries. The company also supplies technology to the Israeli military amid its genocide in Gaza.
Despite mounting scrutiny over Palantir’s alleged links to human rights abuses and Israeli war crimes, several major media organisations have still partnered with the company – including German publishing giant Axel Springer, the new owner of the British newspaper The Telegraph.
Axel Springer – which also owns Politico, Business Insider, Bild, and Welt – uses Palantir’s Foundry software across its media operations.
Palantir has said that Axel Springer used Foundry to integrate data from its various publications and revenue streams, helping to build what the company described as "a more agile, data-driven publishing organisation" capable of responding more effectively to shifts in consumer behaviour and audience interests.
According to Palantir, Foundry enables Axel Springer to gain "detailed insights into readership behaviour, advertising performance, and subscription models".
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But the relationship between Axel Springer and Palantir extends beyond technology partnerships. Between 2018 and 2019, Palantir chief executive Alexander Karp served on the publisher's supervisory board.
Karp and Axel Springer's CEO, Mathias Döpfner, first met years earlier "at a party during Döpfner’s university days".
The ties also appear to extend to Döpfner's son, Moritz, who reportedly worked as chief of staff at Thiel Capital, the investment firm founded by Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel. German business outlet Manager Magazin has reported that Thiel later invested in a venture capital fund established by Moritz Döpfner, providing around $50m in seed funding.
German outlet Focus Online has further reported that Thiel invested several million dollars in a new European defence company after being brought on board by Moritz Döpfner.
The company, Stark Defence, describes itself as "a technology-oriented defence company that delivers the systems Europe and NATO need now". Its unmanned weapons systems are marketed as "AI-enabled, software-defined, and ready for affordable production at scale".
'We all shall be Zionists'
Axel Springer’s partnership with Palantir also aligns with the publisher’s longstanding public support for Israel. In a press release issued on 9 October 2023, the company said: "Axel Springer stands in unconditional solidarity with the State of Israel."
Israel and Palantir announced a strategic partnership in January 2024, three months after Israel began its genocide in Gaza. At the time, Palantir executive vice president Josh Harris told Bloomberg that "both parties agreed to harness Palantir’s advanced technology in support of war-related missions".
The partnership was intended to "significantly aid the Israeli Ministry of Defense".
Support for Israel is also embedded in Axel Springer’s corporate principles. One of the five core tenets in its corporate constitution states: "We support the right of the State of Israel to exist and reject all forms of antisemitism."
The position was reiterated by the Telegraph owner at the World Jewish Congress in May 2026, when Mathias Döpfner said: "I’m a goy [non-Jew] and I’m a Zionist. With all my heart, out of conviction, and with passion." He added: "We all shall be Zionists."
Axel Springer did not respond to Middle East Eye's questions about its collaboration with Palantir.
The full scope of the technologies Palantir provides to Israel remains undisclosed. However, the company has developed a range of AI-powered military technologies, including its Artificial Intelligence Platform, which Palantir says can assist armies with fast decision making.
Reports have also linked Palantir’s Maven Smart System to Israeli military operations in Gaza. The system analyses battlefield imagery, surveillance, logistics and intelligence data to identify targets. In an interview in December 2025, Karp said Maven had been used in Ukraine as well as "in recent operations in the Middle East". In March, The Washington Post reported that both the US and Israel had used Maven during their war on Iran.
Karp has also publicly acknowledged that Palantir's technology is used to kill. In April 2025, responding to accusations that the company’s systems were involved in the killing of Palestinians, he said: "Mostly terrorists, that’s true."
'Nothing further to comment'
Another major media company that has collaborated with Palantir since 2018 is the Swiss publisher Ringier, which owns dozens of media and entertainment brands across Europe and Africa.
Beyond Ringier itself, Karp and Ringier chief executive Marc Walder are also both involved in Digitalswitzerland, an organisation for digital innovation. Walder founded the initiative in 2015 and serves as its president, while Palantir is listed as a member organisation.
According to Ringier’s website, the company uses Palantir’s Foundry software to "drive Ringier’s digital transformation and accelerate the transition to a data-driven, global media company".
Palantir has also said that, in addition to newsroom applications, Ringier uses Foundry to improve performance across the advertising departments of its media brands.
In May 2024 – several months after Palantir announced its strategic defence partnership with Israel – Ringier published its 2023 annual report, revealing that it had also begun using Palantir’s Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP) as part of a five-year partnership with the company.
According to the report, AIP helps Ringier "improve relevant content and better understand user preferences" by integrating and processing large volumes of data. The technology also enables the "precise targeting and optimization of advertising strategies".
Ringier does not only use Palantir’s technology, it has also hired its own in-house Palantir expert. Last winter, the publisher advertised a position for a “Platform Engineer (Palantir Foundry)”, describing the role as “central to the stability, security, and evolution” of Ringier’s “enterprise Palantir Foundry & AIP platform”. The successful candidate would join the company’s infrastructure team.
According to the job posting, responsibilities included administering the Palantir Foundry platform, implementing data governance practices, cooperating with Palantir teams, and "developing and maintaining automated monitoring and alerting solutions using Foundry APIs".
Asked about Ringier’s relationship with the tech company, chief communications officer Johanna Walser told MEE: “We have communicated the nature of our collaboration with Palantir via press release.
“Beyond that, there is nothing further to comment,” she added.
Palantir newsrooms
Last year, Fox News Media announced a partnership with Palantir to “build a suite of custom AI newsroom tools alongside its journalists”, according to an Axios report quoting Fox News Digital president and editor-in-chief Porter Berry.
The collaboration resulted in the development of three tools Palantir engineers “embedded into the digital newsroom’s daily workflow”.
According to the report, one of the tools was designed to help reporters quickly familiarise themselves with developing stories. A second checks articles for errors and adherence to Fox News’s style guide, while a third analyses audience performance and provides insights on story optimisation.
Fox News Media did not respond to a request for comment regarding its partnership with Palantir.
The partnerships between major newsrooms and Palantir have brought editorial independence into question.
While Fox News Media has described the arrangement as "strictly commercial", concerns have been raised about whether such relationships could influence editorial decision making, particularly in how these outlets report on Palantir itself.
Just a few months after Axel Springer acquired The Telegraph, the newspaper published an opinion piece titled "In defence of Palantir", followed by another article headlined "How Palantir became the left’s favourite conspiracy target".
It remains unclear whether these articles were connected to the broader relationship between Palantir and Axel Springer, or whether The Telegraph is using Palantir technology following the takeover. Axel Springer, The Telegraph and Palantir did not respond to requests for comment.
Serious questions have also been raised about whether newsrooms that use Palantir’s platforms are inadvertently training AI systems used in warfare.
Fox News told Axios that its agreements "are structured to prevent its AI partners from training on or otherwise exploiting its content".
Palantir did not respond to questions about whether, or how, it ensures that civilian applications of its technology – including in media organisations – are not used to train or inform its defence-related systems.
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