What would J.R.R. Tolkien think of Palantir?

TL;DR

Tolkien would be horrified — he was anti-surveillance and anti-tech, yet Palantir uses his mythology to justify data dominance and military power.

Key Points

• 1.Palantir was founded in 2003 by Peter Thiel, Alex Karp, and the CIA. The CIA was its sole investor for four years; it builds data-analysis software used by the DoD, FBI, NSA, IRS, ICE, and private companies from Walmart to Wendy's.
• 2.The palantír is a 'seeing stone' in Tolkien's lore that almost always leads to deception. Saruman, Denethor, and even Sauron are each misled or manipulated through the stones — making the name a strange choice for a surveillance company.
• 3.Palantir's internal culture is saturated with Lord of the Rings imagery as a control mechanism. Offices were named the Shire, Rivendell, and Grey Havens; employees were called hobbits; and 'Save the Shire' was a rallying cry used to justify military and intelligence work without internal questioning.
• 4.Tolkien himself was deeply anti-technology and anti-surveillance. He wrote in letters that 'the machine and the corrupted motive of dominating could bulldoze the real world,' and identified personally as a hobbit who preferred rural, decentralized life.
• 5.Thirteen Palantir alumni published a letter in 2025 called 'The Scouring of the Shire' criticizing the company's direction. Former employee Juan Sebastián Pinto argued big tech is co-opting Tolkien's revolutionary fantasy in direct contradiction to his core themes of fellowship, shared understanding, and resistance to domination.