DENVER — As Colorado’s largest public company Palantir announced it would relocate its headquarters from Denver to the Miami area last month, the research group Common Sense Institute has released a report to try to quantify the economic impact.
The controversial software company uses artificial intelligence to analyze data. It has sparked privacy concerns and criticism over its contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). It has also faced protests in Denver, and even some vandalism outside its Cherry Creek office last year.
The Common Sense Institute report said Palantir had 87 employees working in Denver, including five top executives who made nearly $30 million combined in 2024.
The report goes on to say Palantir’s departure will cause a ripple effect, projecting in a given year, it will cost Colorado more than 700 jobs based on the company’s vendors and suppliers. The report also said Colorado could lose around $178 million dollars in economic output.
The Common Sense Institute said the loss of Palantir’s Colorado-based employees will produce:
• An employment loss of 724
• A population loss of 544
• A GDP loss of $106 million
• An economic output loss of $178 million
• A personal income loss of $107 million
Common Sense Institute executive director Kelly Caufield said additional projected job losses are based on "vendors, other suppliers and key companies that would have been working with Palantir here in Colorado."
In its public filing last month, Palantir referenced Colorado’s landmark AI regulation law — which passed in 2024 and is set to go into effect this summer — as “onerous and costly,” signaling one possible reason it decided to leave the state.
Last year, Common Sense Institute also released an economic analysis of that law.
“We found that 30,000 tech jobs could be lost if these AI regulations go into effect as first written,” Caufield told Denver7 this week. “So, look forward to seeing, hopefully a compromise package, and we can certainly study that when we see it.”
Denver7 spoke with Colorado Rep. Brianna Titone, D-District 27, sponsored the artificial intelligence regulation law. She expects there to be change and compromise before the law goes into effect.
In January, Titone said she and other lawmakers wanted to put more of the burden for consumer protections on AI developers, not the companies that use them.
While Palantir leaves Colorado, Common Sense Institute released a new report Wednesday on a positive business development for the state. Construction and development of the $600 million ZYN manufacturing plant in Aurora, which began partial operations last year, has created more than 5,000 jobs. Ongoing operations will support more than 1,000 jobs annually, creating more than $4 billion in total economic output from 2025 to 2030, according to the Common Sense Institute report.
The plant has drawn criticism from public health officials, though, who say a focus on the facility as an economic opportunity is a “disservice to people.”
Philip Morris International makes nicotine pouches at the plant under the brand name ZYN.
