As a company, Palantir has paid out after being sued for racial discrimination, been linked with disgraced UK spy firm Cambridge Analytica, been condemned by Amnesty International for helping to violate the human rights of asylum seekers, contracted with the US government to help develop potentially lethal drones; it provides the Israeli military with surveillance and intelligence services and employs the former CEO of CIA front Radio Free Europe.

The issues are not just with the firm itself. Its CEO and co-founder Alex Karp – an ardent supporter of Israel who has attacked anti-genocide protest as “an infection inside our society” – has boasted about killing people for money and says that he and the firm want to “scare the crap out of [their] adversaries”