A large Norwegian investment and asset management firm has decided to sell its shares in US company Palantir Technologies (NYSE: PLTR), an AI services company known for its security products, and for its work with armed forces such as those of Ukraine, the US, and lately with those of Israel as well. Last year, Palantir announced that it was deepening its ties with Israel’s Ministry of Defense and the Directorate of Defense Research and Development ("Mafat"). Senior company executives, among them its CEO Alex Karp and the company’s main investor and the moving spirit behind it Peter Thiel, were photographed with Mafat head Danny Gold and other senior Mafat personnel, on the occasion of the signing of a new agreement aimed at improving the functioning of the IDF in warfare.
The Norwegian firm, Storebrand, announced that it had "excluded Palantir Technologies Inc. from our investments due its sales of products and services to Israel for use in occupied Palestinian territories." Storebrand’s portfolio specializes in ESG, that is, investments that meet criteria of social equality, environmental sustainability, and corporate governance. Such funds generally go a long way to avoid investment in oil, natural gas, minerals, and defense, and it is therefore not clear why Storebrand invested in Palantir in the first place, since the company is known for its long-term contracts with the US military, including when the US was fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. Its investment in Palantir amounted to $24 million.
On Friday, Palantir’s share price rose by nearly 3%, and fell back by 0.16% in after-hours trading. The company has a market cap of $96 billion.
Although Palantir is a public company, very little is known about what it actually does and about the products and services it provides to its customers. The nature of its collaboration with Israel’s defense establishment, for example, has been kept under wraps. Storebrand stated in its announcement that Palantir’s products supported Israeli surveillance of Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and were used to "identify individuals who are likely to launch 'lone wolf terrorist' attacks, facilitating their arrests preemptively before the strikes that it is projected they would carry out." Palantir develops software products, but it operates as an integrator, tailoring a solution for each customer, and stationing its own employees at the customer’s site to assist with data analysis, which can make it difficult for it to work with security organizations that fear to share internal information.
Thiel and Karp are known as enthusiastic supporters of Israel. Thiel himself is friendly with senior figures in the Israeli government and defense establishment, while Karp has several times expressed support for Israel’s right to defend itself. Following the October 7 2023 massacre by Hamas, Karp and Thiel decided to hold the company’s board meeting in Israel at the beginning of this year. In an open conversation with Israeli tech investor Yossi Vardi at Tel Aviv University, Karp said that the gesture was partly intended "to embarrass other people who are pro-Israel in private but somehow not in public," and added that he was not pro-Israel but simply in favor of war against terrorists. In March, Karp told CNBC that Palantir had lost workers and expected to lose more because of his public support for Israel.
The Norwegian government and the country’s sovereign wealth fund have also demonstrated hostility towards Israel since the Swords of Iron war broke out. In March this year, the government issued a warning to companies invested in an Israeli portfolio that included activity in Judea and Samaria, and, in September, Reuters published a letter from the Norwegian sovereign wealth find, the Government Pension Fund Global, to the country’s Ministry of Finance stating that it was considering tightening its investment criteria to exclude investment in companies connected to "Israel’s war in Gaza."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on October 27, 2024.
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