The AI giant Palantir has moved its headquarters from Denver to Miami, the company stated on X on Tuesday morning.
Palantir offered little immediate explanation about why it made the decision and did not immediately respond to requests for comment. It’s unclear whether the company will reduce its presence in Denver or how many local workers might be affected.
The fast-growing company, which generated $1.4 billion in the fourth quarter of last year, had its headquarters in the Tabor Center in downtown Denver and had reportedly invested in a new office in Cherry Creek.
The company employs around 4,000 people around the world. It moved its headquarters to Denver from Palo Alto in 2020 because it was tired of the West Coast tech hub’s “monoculture,” Axios previously reported.
Protesters have regularly demonstrated outside the Denver offices over the company’s role in President Donald Trump’s mass deportation machine, most recently decrying the company’s role in the immigration enforcement surge in Minneapolis.
“We did not receive advance notice of Palantir’s decision,” wrote Jon Ewing, a spokesperson for Mayor Mike Johnston’. “Denver remains a national hub for the tech sector, and that won’t change with Palantir’s departure.”
The company has also contracted with the federal government to share data about U.S. residents between agencies in response to a March executive order from Trump, The New York Times reported in May.
Florida is far more politically conservative than Denver, with a Republican governor and a reputation as a business friendly state with lower taxes and fewer regulations.
It’s unclear how large of a presence Palantir has in Miami. The city is not currently listed among the six North American offices on the company’s website.
Recently, Denver Councilmember Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez criticized Palantir in a council meeting for its role in supporting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“Palantir is complicit in helping ICE track and target people's movements, causing harm in our communities across the country, and right here in Denver already,” she said.
Despite criticisms of Palantir’s recent role in facilitating a surveillance state, the 23-year-old company, which has grown exponentially in the past year, has been a darling of the stock market.
“Our financial results, those crude and imperfect metrics by which a market filled with both excitement and fear attempts to assess the value of the companies it covets, have again exceeded even our most ambitious expectations,” CEO Alex Karp wrote in a letter to shareholders earlier this month.
While Denver Mayor Mike Johnston often talks about the financial successes of local companies, he and other city leaders have been largely silent on Palantir’s ascension. The company’s work is largely at odds with the decades-long journey that has made Denver and Colorado into welcoming communities for immigrants.
Protesters have had a single demand: “Palantir out.”
Now, that has happened.
This is a developing story.
