Palantir Technologies, the controversial Denver-based data analysis firm, is among nearly 40 donors funding President Donald Trump’s new White House ballroom, the construction of which led to the demolition of the building’s East Wing this week.
The White House released a list of contributors Thursday. In addition to Palantir, the roster included crypto companies and enterpreneurs; technology companies like Meta, Apple and Amazon; major businesses like HP, Caterpillar and T-Mobile; and prominent Republican donors.
It’s unclear how much Palantir, which has a market cap of nearly $440 billion, contributed to the project. The company did not return an email seeking comment Friday morning, and the White House did not identify how much had been given by each donor.
The company was also included on a guest list for a dinner that Trump previously held for nearly 130 supporters of the ballroom, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The donations have helped pave the way for Trump’s demolition of the White House East Wing and his plans to replace it with a new, 90,000-square-foot ballroom.
The ballroom project has yet to receive approvals from the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts, although White House staff secretary Will Scharf, who was also tapped by Trump to lead the planning commission, said approval is not needed. The commission vets the construction of federal buildings.
At the donor dinner earlier this month, Trump said there are no zoning requirements for him as the president of the United States and he can do whatever he wants with the construction.
Palantir’s valuation and prominence have exploded in recent years as it has increasingly offered its services of merging, analyzing and utilizing massive datasets to government agencies. Palantir is now worth more than the combined value of every other Colorado-based company tracked by The Denver Post.
Palantir’s donation to Trump brings the company even closer to the administration. The company has received more than $100 million in federal government contracts since Trump took office, including controversial contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Most recently, the company signed an $11.4 million contract with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs at the end of September, along with roughly $20 million in recent contracts for the U.S. State Department, according to federal contracting records.
The company has also undertaken high-profile work for the U.S. Department of Defense and, outside of the U.S., for the Israeli military — an association that drew criticism from a United Nations official.
Palantir’s billionaire CEO, Alex Karp, has long supported both Republican and Democratic causes, including some Colorado Democrats. But his donations this year have increasingly tilted conservative:
He’s spent $575,000 on a handful of groups supporting Republican Senate candidates in states like Texas, Louisiana and Maine, according to federal campaign finance records. He donated $1 million to a Trump super PAC shortly after Trump won a return to the White House last year.
The New York Times and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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