Palantir Shifts HQ to Miami From Denver After Protests
(Bloomberg) — Palantir Technologies Inc. said it’s moved its headquarters to Miami from Denver at a time when tech firms are headed to South Florida as local officials promote the region as an alternative to California’s Silicon Valley.
The announcement was made Tuesday in a brief statement on the social media platform X, with no reason provided for the move. A spokesperson for the company didn’t respond to a request for comment.
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“We’re very excited as a company and anxious to be a part of the community here,” Shon Manasco, a Palantir executive, said while speaking on a panel at the Defense Tech Leadership Summit on Tuesday in West Palm Beach.
Palantir, a data analytics company with extensive defense contracts, is Colorado’s largest public company. Its decision followed multiple protests since it moved to Denver in 2020 from Palo Alto, due to cultural and ideological differences, according to the Denver Post. Protests have targeted the company’s support of the Israeli military and more recently its work with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement by using artificial intelligence to identify targets for deportation.
State and local officials said they were not told of the decision ahead of time, including Colorado Governor Jared Polis.
“We don’t have any information about potential job impacts at this time either, and hope that it won’t impact the jobs based in Colorado,” Eric Maruyama, a spokesperson for Polis, wrote in an email.
“We did not receive advance notice of Palantir’s decision to leave Denver,” said Jon Ewing, a spokesperson for Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, in an email. “Denver remains a national hub for the tech sector, and that won’t change with Palantir’s departure.”
Miami has been attracting firms and wealthy business executives since the outset of the pandemic drawn by a mix of low taxes, good weather and relatively safe streets. Since Citadel’s big move in 2022, finance companies and tech companies such as Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. have opened or expanded offices. ServiceNow Inc. has committed to opening an office in West Palm Beach.
More recently, a wave of California tech billionaires have been shopping for mansions in Miami at a time when a wealth tax is being discussed back home.
Ken Griffin and Stephen Ross, among the highest-profile billionaires to move to South Florida during the pandemic, recently started bankrolling a new campaign to get others to follow in their footsteps. The pair is funding a $10 million drive to convince more executives, investors and founders to move to the region.
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