Palantir, the controversial data company tied to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, CIA, and multiple countries’ militaries, announced on Tuesday that it’s leaving Denver for Miami as a new corporate headquarters location.
“We have moved our headquarters to Miami, Florida,” the company said in a tweet on Tuesday morning.
An image of the building where Palantir’s headquarters area
CBS
The company didn’t immediately provide any details on what the move would look like and didn’t respond to an emailed request for comment from CBS News Colorado.
At a news conference about an unrelated announcement, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said he was concerned about what the move means for jobs in the state. The company employs about 500 people at its Denver office, Polis said.
“Obviously, what I would be looking to is, does it affect any jobs here in Colorado? It’s not clear whether a headquarters move would or wouldn’t affect that,” Polis said. “I don’t have any information on it. I have requested a meeting with the executives of the company to see if we can learn more.”
Denver Mayor Mike Johnston also said he did not know about the move before Tuesday morning.
“We did not receive advance notice of Palantir’s decision to leave Denver,” a spokesman for Johnston told CBS Colorado. “Denver remains a national hub for the tech sector and that won’t change with Palantir’s departure.”
Founded in 2003 by Peter Thiel, Stephen Cohen, Alex Karp, Joe Lonsdale, and Nathan Gettings with seed money from the CIA’s investment arm In-Q-Tel, the company used to be based in Silicon Valley but moved to Denver in 2020. Its Palo Alto and Denver offices have been the site of multiple protests over its contracts with ICE and the Israeli military.
Len Harris, front right, SEIU Local 105 members, Colorado WINS, labor allies, and immigrant rights organizations rally in front of Palantir Technologies’ new Cherry Creek headquarters in Denver, Colorado, on Friday, January 23, 2026.
Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post via Getty Images
Alendra “Len” Harris, a community organizer with the Colorado AFL-CIO, has been involved in several efforts among labor unions to protest Palantir, both over its work with government agencies and its AI technology, and the possible impact on jobs.
“I don’t think we can point to one single thing that drove Palantir away. I do think all of our efforts in bringing public attention to the way it’s been actively hurting us is a big factor and I think at the legislative level, the bill is also another point of pressure,” Harris said, of the recently-passed Colorado Artificial Intelligence Act.
“We would be remiss not to mention as well, that even though they were invited (to Colorado),” Harris continued, “there are weak labor laws in other states that they can take advantage of, and I think that’s one of the things that also motivated them to move. So as much as we’re celebrating them getting out of here (…) we can’t stop there. I think we need to remember that solidarity goes beyond just our state and they’re going to be taking advantage of weak labor laws in Florida now.”
The company — valued at around $280 billion, according to The Economist and named after the Palantír telepathic “seeing stones” of The Lord of the Rings — has also been the subject of condemnation from elected officials, human rights groups, and even its own employees.
“It is deeply concerning that the US government is deploying invasive AI-powered technologies within a context of a mass deportation agenda and crackdown on pro-Palestine expression, leading to a host of human rights violations,” Erika Guevara-Rosas, with Amnesty International, said in a 2025 statement. “These technologies enable authorities to swiftly track and target international students and other marginalized migrant groups at an unprecedented scale and scope. This has led to a pattern of unlawful detentions and mass deportations, creating a climate of fear and exacerbating the ‘chilling effect’ for migrant communities and for international students across schools and campuses.”
An undated, five-page human rights policy on Palantir’s website says the company has been “committed to defending human rights since our founding.”
The company says its business model is focused on protecting people and their rights.
“We have affirmed the right of all people to protection under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) through our work over the last twenty years, and in this document we seek to share our founding commitment to respect privacy, civil liberties, and other fundamental rights wherever we work,” the policy reads, in part.
Juan Sebastián Pinto, a Denver resident, used to work for Palantir, but is now raising concerns about AI technology, like the kind developed by Palantir, and now works to educate people on those issues.
“I used to market these technologies,” Pinto said at a town hall event he co-hosted over the weekend in Aurora. “I used to market AI. And I feel like people are enormously misled as to what the real concerns are.”
Campaign finance records collected by the advocacy group Purge Palantir show the company or its employees has donated $59,700 to Rep. Jason Crow, and $51,507 to Sen. John Hickenlooper, both Colorado Democrats, in 2025. Earlier this month, the Colorado Sun reported that Hickenlooper and Crow would donate that money to immigrant rights groups to offset the donations they received from the company.
A spokesperson for Hickenlooper’s campaign told CBS Colorado on Tuesday that the campaign doesn’t accept corporate PAC money and stopped accepting donations from Palantir employees after the company announced a contract with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security last year for surveillance technology for ICE.
“In response to ICE’s escalating violence, Hickenlooper is donating those campaign funds he previously received to local non-profits who provide legal assistance, shelter, and other services to immigrants in Colorado,” the spokesperson said.
The company has developed further ties to academia and medical research in Colorado, offering its “Palantir Women in Technology Scholarship” at Metropolitan State University of Denver, for example, which says it’s open to undergraduate students “who identify as female and are pursuing a degree in science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM).”
In 2024, the company announced a partnership with the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus for a data acquisition center.
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