Palantir hired former Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., as an adviser, NPR reported. The software and artificial intelligence company faces heightened scrutiny from Democrats in the incoming Congress over its ties to the Trump administration and surveillance concerns.
Tester said his role is advisory, not lobbying. "My agreement with Palantir is advisory in nature, it is not lobbying," Tester, who lost re-election in 2024, told NPR1. He said he will focus on the government services side of Palantir's work and that the company has "a good story to tell."
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who is expected to chair the Finance Committee, said his office has questions about Palantir's work with the Department of Homeland Security. "If Palantir is not responsive next year, compulsory processes will be on the table," Wyden's staff wrote in a statement to NPR1. Wyden and 30 other Democratic lawmakers earlier demanded answers about Palantir's contracts with DHS.
Palantir has denied allegations of aiding mass surveillance, saying it creates tools for government agencies to organize their own information. The company, valued at over $350 billion, holds $2 billion in federal contracts, according to government records cited by NPR. Last year, over a dozen former Palantir employees criticized the company over its $30 million contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"I think at the end of the day, these companies have an inordinate amount of money and they will try and put it wherever they can in order to stave off any real accountability," Aya Ibrahim, a senior fellow at the AI Now Institute, told NPR1.