The great MoD-to-Palantir pipeline 🔍

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Hi Diogenes,

The revolving door between government and Big Tech is spinning faster than ever.

Palantir hired four former Ministry of Defence officials last year — including Barnaby Kistruck, who joined the US surveillance firm just months before it secured its biggest-ever MoD contract.

During Kistruck's time in government, he played a key role in shaping defence strategies that pushed for a greater role for AI, the very services Palantir now sells to the UK military.

FEATURED STORY

The great Ministry of Defence-to-Palantir pipeline

Ethan Shone

Palantir hired four ex-Ministry of Defence officials last year, with its latest recruit joining months before the US spyware giant won its biggest ever contract with the department, openDemocracy can reveal.

On 31 August 2025, Barnaby Kistruck left his role as the Ministry of Defence's director of industrial strategy, prosperity and exports – marking the end of a career in the civil service spanning almost two decades, in which he'd worked primarily on national security and defence.

Nine days later, he took up his new position as senior counsellor at Palantir, a US tech firm with close ties to the Trump administration that specialises in providing AI-powered military and surveillance systems and data analytics.

openDemocracy understands Kistruck played a key role in writing the UK's Strategic Defence Review and accompanying Defence Industrial Strategy, which were published last summer and recommended AI play an increased role in defence policy.

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When I saw that the UK government had seconded an official to work with Rothschild & Co on defence policy, all paid for by you and me, I knew this was something I had to look into. The revolving door between government, private finance and lobbying firms needs to be exposed if we are to understand how money and power work in our politics. Nowhere is this more urgent than on questions of defence and national security, at a time when the government is investing more and more of taxpayers' money on rearming Britain.

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In December 2025, three months after Kistruck's appointment, Palantir won a three-year Ministry of Defence contract worth £240m to 'modernise defence' by providing "data analytics capabilities supporting critical strategic, tactical and live operational decision making across classifications" in the armed forces.

The contract, which is more than three times larger than any Palantir has previously won with the MoD, was awarded without tender.

openDemocracy is not suggesting any wrongdoing on Kistruck's part. But his appointment highlights Palantir's preference for 'revolving door' recruitment, in which private firms appoint outgoing ministers, senior civil servants and special advisers to lobbying or advisory posts.

Kistruck was Palantir's fourth hire from the public defence sector last year, alongside two high-level civil servants, Laurence Lee and Damian Parmenter, and former Conservative armed forces minister Leo Docherty, who lost his seat at the July 2024 election.

At the same time, the company forged close ties with the UK government, holding official meetings with the prime minister, then US ambassador, six cabinet ministers, and senior officials from the Cabinet Office, the Treasury and the Home Office in 2025.

In February 2025, Keir Starmer and then US ambassador Peter Mandelson enjoyed what the Cabinet Office has called an "informal visit" to the firm's HQ in Washington, DC, involving a tour of its facilities, a Q&A with staff, and a meeting with Palantir CEO Alex Karp.

Four months later, Palantir's UK CEO, Louis Mosley, joined the Ministry of Defence's Industrial Joint Council, which the government describes as its "main strategic mechanism for defence sector engagement". Then, during US President Donald Trump's UK state visit in September, the Ministry of Defence announced it had agreed a 'strategic partnership' with the company.

Iain Overton of the campaign group Action on Armed Violence told openDemocracy that the "steady stream of senior defence officials moving into Palantir should concern anyone interested in how the military-industrial complex works".

"We risk becoming subservient to a single, American-based proprietary technology," he warned. "And when the Ministry of Defence treats one foreign firm as indispensable to how it fights, plans and thinks, the danger is not only dependency, but an erosion of accountability.

"Modernising defence does not require hard-wiring it to one toxic company's will, especially at a time when the US is being far from the reliable ally we have all too often thought of it as."

openDemocracy's findings come as Palantir's public contracts come under increased scrutiny. Earlier this week, Green Party leader Zack Polanski delivered a letter to Palantir's London office warning that he is seeking to terminate the company's £330m contract to run the NHS's Federated Data Platform, which manages large amounts of sensitive NHS data.

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"We are putting Palantir on notice," said Polanski, in a video filmed outside Palantir's office. "This is a military surveillance company tied to authoritarian surveillance and the devastation in Gaza – and it has no role in our NHS."

The government's close relationship with Palantir is also raising questions as Europe grapples with Trump's erratic foreign policy, including his threats to invade Greenland and punish European leaders who stand in his way with tariffs.

Palantir was founded by billionaire Peter Thiel, a close ally of Trump who donated to his 2016 presidential campaign, using money from the CIA. Senior figures at the firm have continually stressed its unwavering commitment to US "domination".

'Loving life at Palantir'

The last time Palantir hired several former UK civil servants in quick succession was in late 2022, around the time that it signed its first 'Enterprise Agreement' with the Ministry of Defence, a deal that was at the time worth £75m.

In April 2023, five months after Polly Scully was appointed Palantir's 'senior counsellor: UK government', she personally invited then-armed forces minister James Heappey to a reception the firm was hosting in London to celebrate the signing of the agreement.

"I just wanted to say a big thank you for joining us on Wednesday night," she wrote in an email to Heappey days after the event. It was great to have such significant support for the Enterprise Agreement; I hope you had a good time.

"We are still figuring out what partnership between MoD and industry means in practice, but I'm sure some of it is about building trusted relationships, and hopefully we did some of that on Wednesday night."

Scully was well-placed to help the firm develop trusted relationships with the MoD; she'd recently left a position as its strategic director, and had worked in a variety of senior roles across the department over the previous eight years – a fact she acknowledged in her email to Heappey.

"As I mentioned I am loving life at Palantir but MoD still has a big place in my heart," she wrote.

Scully wasn't the first former crown servant to be tasked with building the firm's ties with government, as openDemocracy reported in 2023. It seems likely she won't be the last.

When openDemocracy approached Palantir to ask about its recent hires from the Ministry of Defence, it responded via a spokesperson who worked at the Ministry of Defence in 2015/16.

The spokesperson, who has also held roles as a special adviser in No 10 and the Conservative Party's co-director of communications, said: "Palantir requires all staff to adhere to any non-compete clauses or business appointment rules advice – as has been the case in both of these instances."

An MOD spokesperson said: "We conduct comprehensive due diligence on any business appointments that may lead to concern.

"We work diligently to enforce any conditions placed on individuals, fully investigating instances raised of breached policy and, if found valid, take appropriate action."

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