The state's largest public company is leaving Denver for Miami.
In a bare-bones statement on social media, controversial software analytics firm Palantir Technologies said only, "we have moved our headquarters to Miami, Florida."
Gov. Jared Polis said he was not notified about the company's move in advance and said it's not clear whether the move will affect jobs in Colorado. Denver mayor's office tells us it was not notified ahead of time either, and that Palantir does not have a significant number of employees here.
"We did not receive advance notice of Palantir’s decision to leave Denver. Denver remains a national hub for the tech sector and that won’t change with Palantir’s departure," said a spokesman for Mayor Mike Johnston.
Gov. Jared Polis also said he had not received notification of the move.
"I don't know what the announcement means," Polis told reporters Tuesday. "Obviously what I would be looking to is does this affect any jobs here in Colorado."
Palantir reported roughly 4,400 total employees, but does not provide a breakdown of how many are in Colorado.
Polis said he has requested a meeting with the company's excutives to learn more. Palantir has not responded to Denver7's requests for additional information.
Denver7 has previously reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has used Palantir's facial recognition programs in Minnesota to find protesters who have committed crimes. The company's office in Denver has seen recent protests over that.
Federal agencies report using the technology to find protesters who have committed crime such as vandalism.
According to The New York Times, ICE is using two facial recognition programs in Minnesota, including one made by Clearview AI and another made by Palantir.
The Palantir app, called Elite, combines government and commercial data.
“This allows the agents to sift through huge amounts of data to essentially create kind of Yelp listings of potentially deportable people," explained Jonathon Booth, University of Colorado Law School associate professor. "They can filter, they can sort... They can create target lists. They can have maps of where they believe these people congregate. The legality is unclear. You know, this hasn't been tested in court. It certainly, I would say, goes against our values of individual freedom and First Amendment, but it's a little unclear. There haven't yet been any lawsuits about this.”
Denver7 anchor Shannon Ogden spoke with a protest organizer who said he considers the company's relocation announcement a victory.
The Denver Chamber of Commerce was less optimistic, saying that "Colorado needs to compete if we want to win."
"Companies have choices on where to locate jobs, investments, and HQs – and Colorado needs to compete if we want to win. Palantir moved here in 2020 from California seeking a new home with lower costs and a friendlier environment, but that was then," J. J. Ament, President and CEO of the Denver Metro Chamber, said in a statement. "Today, they have chosen Florida, one of our top 10 competitive states, for their HQ. Even though they only called Colorado home for a brief period of time, we’re sorry our largest company by market cap is choosing another location for their HQ. This move, and others, as well as our continued decline in economic competitiveness rankings, should serve as a wakeup call to policy makers.
"If we want a strong, robust economy, we need to lower costs, stabilize our politics, and make it easier to businesses of all kinds to be successful here. We love Colorado, and if want to read about HQs moving here instead of leaving, the policy choices are clear and up to us."
Palantir gave no reason for the move, but Florida has no state income tax as Colorado does.
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