Does JD Vance have a Palantir problem?

In a recent conversation, Vice President JD Vance asked Roger Stone, President Donald Trump’s longtime confidant, for his biggest concern facing the country. Stone later recalled on his radio show that his answer was a technology company Vance now hears about with increasing frequency: Palantir.

For years, Democrats have zeroed in on Vance’s relationship with Palantir’s co-founder Peter Thiel, the iconoclastic tech titan who gave Vance one of his first jobs and later put $15 million behind his successful 2022 Ohio Senate bid.

But the pressure on Vance is now coming from inside Trump’s coalition. As the administration steers billions of dollars of new work to Palantir, prominent voices have expressed fears that the firm’s powerful data analytics tools could give the government sweeping, almost futuristic surveillance capabilities. MAGA architect Steve Bannon has likened Palantir to a sci-fi villain while comedian Joe Rogan called the company “creepy” on his top-ranked podcast.

The rising unease has put Vance on the defensive. At an October gathering of young conservatives at the University of Mississippi, he bristled at “this internet meme out there that somehow I am super in bed with Palantir” when the company’s name surfaced.

“Palantir is a private company,” Vance added. “They sometimes do a useful service, and sometimes they’re going to do things that we don’t like.”