Germany ‘rejects’ Palantir’s software that is considered the backbone of America’s military, and for the same reason Europe has been saying ‘No’ to Microsoft, Google and Amazon
Germany’s Bundeswehr has quietly but firmly shut the door on Palantir—the American data analytics firm whose software runs targeting systems in Ukraine, is embedded across the US military, and just logged $1.63 billion in quarterly revenue. The reason Berlin is walking away has nothing to do with the technology. It never does.Vice Admiral Thomas Daum, head of the Bundeswehr’s Cyber and Information Domain Service, put it plainly to Handelsblatt in April: granting employees of a private American company access to Germany’s national military database is “simply inconceivable.” Germany’s Digital Minister Karsten Wildberger echoed the sentiment to Politico, saying Berlin wants a European alternative—full stop.Palantir is not being reviewed, reconsidered, or shortlisted. It is excluded.
The same sovereignty concern that haunts Big Tech is now hitting defence software
This is the same argument Europe has been making about American cloud providers for years. Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have all run into versions of this wall—data residency requirements, GDPR compliance headaches, and the underlying anxiety that US law could compel American companies to hand over European data, no matter where it’s stored.With defence software, the stakes are higher. Germany is in the middle of its largest military build-up since reunification. Handing the data infrastructure of that effort to a California-based firm—one whose employees would, by operational necessity, need some level of system access—is a political risk Berlin has decided it cannot take.The Bundeswehr has instead shortlisted three European candidates: Almato from Stuttgart, Orcrist from Berlin, and ChapsVision from Paris. Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the BfV, has already picked ChapsVision. A contract for the military is expected by the end of the year.
Plantir CEO Alex Karp’s frustration is loud
Palantir CEO Alex Karp is not taking it quietly. In an interview with Bild, he compared Germany’s debate around his company to “conversations about witchcraft.” He pointed out that co-founder Peter Thiel was born in Germany and that he himself studied there and speaks fluent German. “Every other country would have found a way to adopt us,” he said.His core argument is hard to dismiss on technical grounds. Palantir’s software is active on “every serious battlefield in the world,” including Ukraine, where Karp says the military tracks combat outcomes “the way a tech company manages its customers”—down to casualties per square kilometre.Germany’s objection isn’t a verdict on what Palantir’s software does—it’s a verdict on who owns it. No data agreement or contractual clause changes the underlying reality: Palantir is a US company, subject to US law, operating in a moment when transatlantic trust is thinner than it has been in decades. Berlin has done the calculation and decided that convenience doesn’t outweigh exposure.Meanwhile, Palantir posted 85% year-on-year revenue growth in Q1, raised its full-year guidance to $7.65 billion, and is formally embedded in the Pentagon as a programme of record. The company is not hurting. “But losing Germany—the largest economy in Europe and mid-way through a historic defence build-up—is a concrete setback, regardless of how strong the balance sheet looks. The Bundeswehr’s decision will shape its military data infrastructure for years, and the contract is expected to go to a European firm before the end of 2026.
