Peace and Security Forum calls on the Future Fund to review its $100m investment in AI arms dealer Palantir
APSF Media release 230426 Call for Future Fund to disinvest in Palantir
The Australian Peace and Security Forum (APSF) has called for Australia’s Future Fund to review its $100 million investment in the US based technology company Palantir Technologies, known for its weaponised AI-based data analysis. APSF wrote to Future Fund CEO, Dr Raphael Arndt, in March.
Co-President of APSF, Emeritus Professor Ian Lowe, said “we are puzzled how the company met the conditions of the Fund’s Responsible Investment Policy. Palantir Technology now underpins some of the most controversial operations in the Western world. The Future Fund should disinvest in Palantir.”
Palantir’s recently published manifesto reveals deeply racist views that should be rejected by the Future Fund as a threat to social cohesion in multicultural Australia. Palantir CEO Alex Karp argues that an unthinking commitment to inclusivity and pluralism “glosses over the fact that certain cultures and indeed subcultures… have produced wonders. Others have proven middling, and worse, regressive and harmful”.
Parliamentarians/Congress members across the US, UK, Germany, Ireland, Switzerland and the European Parliament have sounded alarm about the activities of the tech giant.
The APSF letter also notes media reports that following a risk assessment of the use of Palantir software, the Swiss Government rejected the US corporation. The Swiss considered the risk too high, with Swiss military experts concluding that a data leak from the Palantir system cannot be “technically prevented”. The technology posed “devastating risks to privacy” and sensitive data could be accessed by US Government and intelligence agencies.”
Palantir is under international scrutiny for its links to the genocide in Gaza and for its work for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The 2025 report by the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese, cited Palantir’s strategic partnership with Israel and concluded that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Palantir’s AI platform has been used in Israel’s “unlawful use of force,” causing disproportionate loss of civilian life in Gaza.
“APSF is deeply concerned that the Future Fund would invest in companies complicit in, and profiting from, the genocide in Gaza,” said APSF co-President Dr Matilda Byrne.
“The culture and ideology of Palantir is not consistent with the Responsible Investment policies of the Future Fund nor with the values of the Australian people,” she said.
Contact:
- Emeritus Prof Ian Lowe, Co-President APSF 0427 278 432
- Dr Matilda Byrne, Co-President APSF 0400 118 441