MAGA Influencers Sound the Alarm on Trump’s Big Tech Database, Warn They Are Being Bought Off

(AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

In recent days, MAGA influencers from Steve Bannon to Tom Dillon to Ian Carroll have all sounded the alarm on Peter Thiel’s Palantir being brought in by the Trump administration to create a central database of Americans’ information.

Dillon, a popular comedian and podcaster on the right, went so far as to say “I think they are buying people” and accused Thiel of inviting him over for dinners “to discuss the media” – clearly suggesting “Big Tech” is working to buy off MAGA influencers to support Palantir’s “list” – as he called it.

Bannon, the former White House advisor turned MAGA podcaster, recently told Chuck Todd that “the MAGA base is not happy” about the Palantir plans and said he would destroy a Democratic administration trying to do something similar. “I think War Room would open every show about it. We’re pretty upset about it,” Bannon said when asked how he’d respond to the left doing something similar.

The story first jumped into the political discourse in late May after The New York Times reported on the Trump administration’s moves to create a “master list” by merging data from the IRS, Social Security Administration, ICE, and Department of Education.

Carroll, who has been accused of pushing anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, filled in for Candace Owens recently and opened the show with a lengthy takedown of both Vice President JD Vance and Palantir.

Carroll dove into Vance’s shape-shifting rise to power, attributing his success in large part to Thiel. “And the plot gets even thicker when you learn about Vance’s benefactor and backer all the way from Yale straight to the White House. Peter Thiel, the founder of Palantir and one of the most powerful men in America, seems to have more or less placed him [Vance] there almost single-handedly,” Carroll said, later arguing that “Big Tech” leaders convinced Trump to make Vance VP.

“He’s articulate. He’s the best vice president I can remember in my short lifetime. But, it is awfully convenient for Peter Thiel that he gets his boy into office and then within just a few months, Palantir announces a new mega-program with the Trump government,” Carroll said, adding:

And not just any program, but Palantir’s specialty, a digital mass surveillance system to target you and your family and all the rest of us. The Economic Times reported that, quote, ‘Palantir isn’t just improving old databases, it’s building what some experts are calling the most expansive civilian surveillance infrastructure in US history. Instead of scattered files and spreadsheets, the platform will use real-time data integration and artificial intelligence to profile behavior, detect fraud and identify individuals or patterns deemed risky by the system.

At the core of the project is Palantir’s Gotham software. Already used by defense and intelligence agencies, Gotham will now be used on the domestic front. It doesn’t just track information, it makes judgments.

It could influence everything from how benefits are distributed to who gets flagged for closer scrutiny by law enforcement or immigration officers. So, good. They’re deploying military surveillance AI to watch our every move… And by bug, I mean investigate, harass, arrest, and probably more.

Carroll ended his lengthy screed with an ominous warning, saying that while Palantir’s software could help monitor illegal immigrants, it won’t end there. “No, they could and will use this to target anyone and everyone. This won’t just get used on critics of the Trump administration. This will get used on critics of every future American government until the end of America, because that’s how government works. Once you give them a power, they never give it back,” he declared, adding:

And we are entering into territory from which there is no return. And inflaming leftist talking points are both unnecessary and not the move. This is not a partisan issue.

In fact, this is a deeply anti-American issue. And I’m sure I don’t need to explain to a conservative why having AI watching you at all times and doling out social credit scores is a bad thing.

Popular podcaster Theo Von asked Vance about it directly last week, saying that it all “feels real scary, man.”

“Like, to a regular guy on the street, that feels like we’re going to give our society, like we’re going to become these, like they’re going to know everything about us. It makes you feel like you won’t be a person anymore,” Von pressed.

Vance replied at length, saying, “My understanding is that it does sound odd, but that what they’re trying to do is take all the information that the Department of Homeland Security has that the FBI has and just make it so that it’s actually not in some hyper inefficient system. It’s all sort of accessible. And here’s the thing. Modern technology is just crazy and weird, and it affects our privacy. And I think we don’t have to think that’s a good thing. It is like a reality of the world that we live in.”

Vance’s critics have long claimed that Thiel, who first hired Vance to work at his global investment fund in 2017 and later donated $15 million to his Senate campaign, has the vice president in his pocket. The MAGA fever swamps are now beginning to rumble with a similar concern and point to Laura Loomer’s conversion on Palantir as proof.

Loomer raged at Palantir in a 2023 tweet, writing, “MUST WATCH: Alex Karp, the co-founder & CEO of Peter Thiel’s company Palantir, says that their product known as Gotham (which he calls PG) “single handedly stopped the rise of the far right in Europe”. Peter Thiel calls himself an ally to the right while he works to destroy us.”

However, in recent days she has called for the company’s software to be “deployed” to Los Angeles to “deal with the illegals.” The MAGA AF (America First) Post connected Loomer’s conversion on Palantir to her recent meeting with Vance.

“Nick Fuentes posits that violence is being stoked between the left and the right to pave the way for control by technocratic elites. Notably, in the wake of the LA riots, Laura Loomer (who recently met with the Vice President) called for government-backed Palantir surveillance of mosques and migrants—as if it would stop there,” posted the account, while citing a clip from avowed neo-Nazi and Holocaust denier Fuentes warning that Palantir will be used to create a “police state.”

Dillon argued that more MAGA influencers are likely to flip on the issue as well, even giving a timeline for their conversion. “So my prediction and I’m not, I don’t want to name names because I don’t know, but my prediction is you’re gonna see a lot of people over the next six months start thinking this list is a great idea. They’re gonna start telling you how great this is and how it’s about terrorism. That’s the, that’ll start going, well, it’s a terror, have you heard? It’s terrorism… This is gonna happen,” he declared.