Palantir tapped for White House coronavirus data analysis, report says

Data-mining company Palantir will contribute to a US government program that helps top officials make recommendations to President Donald Trump, according to a Daily Beast report Tuesday. The program, reportedly called HHS Protect Now, crunches data to help officials understand the coronavirus pandemic, in which more than 850,000 people in the states have been diagnosed with COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus, and more than 47,000 people have died from the disease.

The company’s founder, Peter Thiel, is a longtime supporter of the president and brokered a meeting with several other Silicon Valley leaders at the start of the Trump administration. Palantir has counted government agencies as customers, and has worked on counter-terrorism efforts.

The move appears to put Palantir at the heart of a program that could be central to White House decision-making. Officials on the president’s coronavirus task force reportedly told the Daily Beast that Trump relies on presentations from task force leader Deborah Birx when making policy plans, and Birx gets information from HHS Protect Now.

Palantir and the US Department of Health and Human Services didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

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