"European money pours into Palantir: Over 100 asset managers and banks boost their investments in the controversial tech company" 11 April 2026

Over the past year, major European banks and asset managers have dramatically increased their investments in Palantir, the controversial U.S. technology company. This is despite the firm’s links to serious human rights violations. The company provides services to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) and to the Israeli army in the Palestinian territories. In 2020, Amnesty International denounced the company for failing to comply with international standards, while the consulting firm MSCI gave it a score of two out of 10 for “civil liberties” and “human rights” in a recent benchmark report for institutional investors worldwide. Palantir’s founder and chairman, Peter Thiel, openly advocates anti-democratic and anti-EU positions.

Even so, more than 100 major European banks, asset managers, insurers and pension funds increased their combined stake in the company by more than 60% in the last year. This is according to data compiled by an international investigation coordinated by Follow The Money, a platform for independent journalism, and in which EL PAÍS participated...

...Nearly all of the largest European investors in Palantir analyzed by the investigation claim to support the OECD guidelines. These require audits and due diligence when investing in companies accused of human rights abuses, especially in conflict zones or areas where artificial intelligence (AI) is used...

...However, banks like Norges Bank, which manages Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, increased their investment in Palantir by 60% between 2024 and 2025, reaching almost 29 million shares worth $5.1 billion by the end of December 2025, making it the largest European investor in the company. French asset manager Amundi ranks second, with nearly $3 billion invested, followed by British insurer Legal & General ($2.5 billion). Among the major banks, London’s Barclays ($2.2 billion), Deutsche Bank ($2 billion), France’s BNP Paribas (over $1 billion), the Swiss National Bank ($1.1 billion) and the Dutch asset manager Cardano ($1 billion) stand out...Santander held shares worth $18 million at the end of 2025, or 16 times more than a year earlier. According to the bank, the investment is made through funds that are delegated to other asset managers, who make the investment decisions. BBVA, meanwhile, reached a total of $103 million invested in Palantir at the end of the same year, with its position increasing from 400,000 to 583,000 shares in 12 months. Sources within the bank emphasize that BBVA’s holdings are exclusively due to transactions made on behalf of clients and investment funds...

...Why Palantir is problematic: From ICE to Gaza, via Germany...

...Palantir’s products have been used in the United States under four administrations, both Democratic and Republican. Its Maven Smart System (MSS) — which uses Claude, Anthropic’s AI — is considered critical by the Pentagon for gathering classified data from multiple sources and using it for target acquisition, strategic planning, as well as the guidance of drones and missiles. Several international media outlets have reported that Palantir’s technology was used in the recent missile strikes against Iranian targets.

U.S. security agencies have awarded multibillion-dollar contracts to the company. ICE has been using its software to locate migrant families since at least 2020, when Amnesty International denounced the agency for frequently overstepping its bounds in the use of this technology. 404 Media, an American digital media company, revealed that Palantir developed an application for ICE that maps the presence of migrants in specific neighborhoods, using personal files, photographs, and an estimate of the likelihood that they’re at home...

...In 2024, the company signed a strategic alliance with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to support its military operations in Gaza...

...In Germany, the army’s cybersecurity division issued an official alert regarding the company’s use of sensitive defense data. Meanwhile, the use of the firm’s data-analysis software is prohibited at the federal level, although some state police forces still employ it. In Spain, the Ministry of Defense awarded Palantir a €16.5 million ($19 million) contract in 2022 without a public tender for the management of databases for the Armed Forces Intelligence Center. And, in the Netherlands, the army uses the firm’s software in secret military operations, as revealed by Follow The Money last year...

[Palantir's responses]

Palantir maintains that its software helps “to better track the immigration lifecycle and serve [U.S.] national security while promoting efficiency, transparency and accountability. By improving data integration and data-dependent workflows, our software can help ICE more effectively and reliably perform its core functions.”

A Palantir spokesperson asserts that the company has not participated in the development of the AI systems used by the Israeli military to locate targets.

[A] spokesperson argues that Palantir’s software has assisted European institutions in healthcare, defense and national security. “Palantir’s founding mission,” they claim, “is to support Western liberal democracies and their essential institutions.”