Former Labour deputy chief Tom Watson joins Palantir | Tom Watson

Another former authorities minister has been employed by a controversial US AI firm, this time Palantir, which has appointed Andy Burnham’s former ministerial colleague Tom Watson.

The Labour peer and former deputy chief will function alongside Palantir’s UK and Europe chief govt, Louis Mosley, as the corporate makes an attempt to fend off pressure on Burnham’s government to axe its £330m NHS contract. It can also be preventing Sadiq Khan in courtroom over the Labour London mayor’s block on a £50m contract to use its AI in Metropolitan police investigations. Palantir additionally desires to win extra public sector work within the UK, the place it already has an annual turnover of £427m.

The firm was co-founded by the Trump-supporting billionaire Peter Thiel and supplies AI-powered software to the Israeli military and the White House’s ICE immigration crackdown, resulting in a public and political backlash towards its deepening involvement in British public companies. Alex Karp, its chief govt, mentioned: “This is simply the newest chapter of Tom’s forty-year struggle for higher public companies. We are lucky to have him information us as we assist the British authorities to ship for the British public.”

His job might be, partially, to “deepen the social and financial worth its work creates by way of higher British public companies, jobs and abilities”, Palantir mentioned.

Since stepping down from parliament in 2019, Watson has been an adviser to the playing and music industries and, since 2024, he has been a part-time adviser to Palantir, together with accompanying Mosley at Labour celebration conferences. He was a defence minister and a minister for digital engagement in Gordon Brown’s authorities. Palantir has a £240m contract with the Ministry of Defence.

The transfer is simply the newest instance of a revolving door between British politics and massive tech. After the previous deputy prime minister Nick Clegg spent nearly seven years earning millions working for Mark Zuckerberg at Meta, the previous prime minister Rishi Sunak last year took jobs with Anthropic and Microsoft and the previous chancellor George Osborne started working for OpenAI. Keir Starmer’s AI adviser, Matt Clifford, also joined Anthropic this month. He tried to retain the chair of a authorities science and tech analysis physique, however quit underneath strain over conflicts of curiosity.

“The revolving door is proving very fruitful for large tech,” mentioned Tom Brake, the chief govt of Unlock Democracy, a not-for-profit marketing campaign group. “The solely surefire strategy to cease tech corporations benefiting from privileged info acquired by ministers or senior civil servants is to introduce an enforceable five-year ban on taking over business posts.”

Watson mentioned he was “terrifically excited” by the brand new function as Palantir’s senior vice-president and highlighted two of the contracts which are in dispute when he mentioned he wished to assist Palantir velocity up NHS prognosis, therapy and discharge from hospitals and allow “our police to crack crimes and root out corruption”. Palantir mentioned Watson had taken a go away of absence from the House of Lords and had relinquished his parliamentary move whereas working for Palantir in London.