Palantir Technologies has long stood as one of the most polarizing technology firms in the modern digital age. Boasting a client roster that includes U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. Army, and law enforcement, intelligence and security agencies across multiple European nations, the company has drawn global backlash for its ongoing technology supply agreement with the Israeli military amid the latter’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza that has been widely accused of constituting genocide.
Despite growing international scrutiny over Palantir’s documented ties to alleged human rights violations and accusations of complicity in Israeli war crimes, a number of major global media organizations have maintained active, deep-rooted partnerships with the controversial firm. Among these partners is German publishing giant Axel Springer, the current parent company of prominent British newspaper The Telegraph, which also owns well-known outlets including Politico, Business Insider, Bild and Welt.
Axel Springer currently integrates Palantir’s core Foundry software across all of its global publishing operations. Palantir has publicly stated that Axel Springer leverages Foundry to unify disparate data sets from its dozens of individual publications and multiple revenue streams, enabling the creation of what the tech firm describes as “a more agile, data-driven publishing organisation” that can adapt more quickly to changing consumer habits and evolving audience preferences. Per Palantir’s own description, Foundry gives Axel Springer granular, actionable insights into reader behavior, advertising campaign performance, and the effectiveness of its subscription business models.
But the ties between Axel Springer and Palantir extend far beyond a standard commercial technology partnership. Between 2018 and 2019, Palantir CEO Alexander Karp held a seat on the German publisher’s supervisory board. The personal connection between Karp and Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner dates back decades, with the pair first meeting “at a party during Döpfner’s university days,” according to public records.
Close links also extend to Döpfner’s son, Moritz Döpfner, who previously served as chief of staff at Thiel Capital, the private investment firm founded by Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel. German business publication Manager Magazin has reported that Thiel later invested approximately $50 million in seed funding into a venture capital fund launched by Moritz Döpfner. Focus Online, another prominent German outlet, has additionally documented that Thiel committed several million dollars in funding to a new European defense startup after being introduced to the project by Moritz Döpfner.
That startup, Stark Defence, positions itself as “a technology-oriented defence company that delivers the systems Europe and NATO need now.” It markets its unmanned weapons systems as “AI-enabled, software-defined, and ready for affordable production at scale.”
Axel Springer’s partnership with Palantir also aligns with the publishing giant’s longstanding public stance of unwavering support for Israel. In an official press release issued October 9, 2023, just two days after the 7 October attacks, the company stated: “Axel Springer stands in unconditional solidarity with the State of Israel.” This commitment is formally embedded in Axel Springer’s core corporate principles: one of the five central tenets of its corporate constitution reads, “We support the right of the State of Israel to exist and reject all forms of antisemitism.”
Döpfner reaffirmed this position at a World Jewish Congress event in May 2026, stating: “I’m a goy [non-Jew] and I’m a Zionist. With all my heart, out of conviction, and with passion. We all shall be Zionists.”
Palantir and the Israeli government formally announced a strategic partnership in January 2024, three months after Israel launched its military operation in Gaza. At the time of the announcement, Palantir Executive Vice President Josh Harris told Bloomberg that “both parties agreed to harness Palantir’s advanced technology in support of war-related missions” that would “significantly aid the Israeli Ministry of Defense.”
The full scope of Palantir’s technology offerings to Israel remains undisclosed, but the company has built a broad portfolio of AI-powered military tools, including its flagship Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP), which Palantir says enables faster, more data-informed decision making for frontline military forces. Multiple independent reports have also linked Palantir’s Maven Smart System to Israeli military operations in Gaza. The Maven system aggregates and analyzes battlefield imagery, surveillance data, logistics information and intelligence to identify potential targets for strikes. In a December 2025 interview, Karp confirmed that Maven had been deployed in Ukraine as well as “in recent operations in the Middle East.” The Washington Post reported in March 2026 that both the U.S. and Israel used the Maven system during their joint war on Iran.
Karp has also openly acknowledged that Palantir’s technology is used to carry out lethal strikes. Responding to accusations in April 2025 that the company’s systems were complicit in the deaths of Palestinians, Karp stated: “Mostly terrorists, that’s true.”
Axel Springer has declined to respond to inquiries from Middle East Eye regarding its collaboration with Palantir.
Beyond Axel Springer, another major European media firm, Swiss publisher Ringier – which owns dozens of media and entertainment brands across Europe and Africa – has maintained a partnership with Palantir since 2018. Like Axel Springer, Ringier’s leadership shares deep personal and professional ties with Palantir’s executive team: both Karp and Ringier CEO Marc Walder are involved in Digitalswitzerland, a leading Swiss digital innovation initiative that Walder founded in 2015 and has led as president ever since, with Palantir listed as a core member organization.
Per information posted on Ringier’s official website, the publisher uses Palantir’s Foundry software to “drive Ringier’s digital transformation and accelerate the transition to a data-driven, global media company.” Palantir also confirms that in addition to newsroom uses, Ringier leverages Foundry to boost performance across the advertising departments of all its media properties. In May 2024, several months after Palantir announced its strategic defense partnership with Israel, Ringier published its 2023 annual report revealing that the company had expanded its partnership, launching a five-year agreement to adopt Palantir’s Artificial Intelligence Platform. The report notes that AIP helps Ringier “improve relevant content and better understand user preferences” by integrating and processing large volumes of user and content data, while also enabling “precise targeting and optimization of advertising strategies.”
Ringier has gone beyond just adopting Palantir’s technology, hiring a dedicated in-house Palantir expert. Last winter, the publisher posted a job opening for a “Platform Engineer (Palantir Foundry),” framing the role as “central to the stability, security, and evolution” of Ringier’s enterprise Palantir Foundry and AIP infrastructure. The job posting outlined responsibilities including platform administration, implementing data governance frameworks, collaborating directly with Palantir’s technical teams, and building and maintaining automated monitoring and alert systems using Foundry’s application programming interface. When contacted by Middle East Eye for comment on the partnership, Ringier Chief Communications Officer Johanna Walser said only: “We have communicated the nature of our collaboration with Palantir via press release. Beyond that, there is nothing further to comment.”
Most recently, U.S.-based Fox News Media announced its own partnership with Palantir to develop a custom suite of AI tools for its newsroom, working alongside the outlet’s journalists, according to an Axios report quoting Fox News Digital President and Editor-in-Chief Porter Berry. The collaboration has produced three custom tools that Palantir engineers have integrated directly into the digital newsroom’s daily workflow. One tool is designed to help reporters quickly get up to speed on fast-developing breaking stories, a second fact-checks articles for errors and ensures alignment with Fox News’ internal style guide, and the third analyzes audience engagement to provide insights for optimizing story performance. Fox News Media has also declined to respond to requests for comment on the partnership.
These widespread partnerships between major global newsrooms and Palantir have sparked urgent questions about editorial independence and potential conflicts of interest. While Fox News has framed its agreement as “strictly commercial,” critics have raised concerns that these close financial and institutional ties could shape editorial decision-making, particularly when it comes to coverage of Palantir, its activities, and Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
Not long after Axel Springer completed its acquisition of The Telegraph, the British newspaper published an opinion piece titled “In defence of Palantir,” followed by a second article headlined “How Palantir became the left’s favourite conspiracy target.” It remains unclear whether these pieces were connected to the broader relationship between the two firms, or whether The Telegraph has begun using Palantir’s technology following the takeover. Axel Springer, The Telegraph, and Palantir all declined to comment on the matter.
Additional critical questions have emerged over whether newsrooms using Palantir’s platforms are unknowingly contributing to training the AI systems the company develops for military use. Fox News has stated that its agreements “are structured to prevent its AI partners from training on or otherwise exploiting its content.” Palantir, however, has not responded to repeated questions about whether, and how, it ensures that civilian uses of its technology – including its deployments at media organizations – are not repurposed to train or inform its defense-focused AI systems.