Mike Gallagher Talks Priorities as Palantir’s New Defense Chief

Palantir Technologies announced Thursday that it has named Mike Gallagher, a former congressman who chaired the House China Select Committee, as its director of defense.

The Wisconsin Republican left Congress earlier this year after four terms during which he served on the House Armed Services Committee, was the lead commissioner on the congressionally appointed Solarium Cyber ​​Commission and frequently advocated for defense technology issues, including calls to ban TikTok.

Gallagher’s decision to join Palantir comes as the Pentagon learns to work with technology companies to buy what it needs for less money and as Congress seeks the best ways to oversee technological innovation.

The company has been aggressively expanding its reach into defense and intelligence agencies in recent years, and revealed an increase in its government business in its second-quarter earnings report. Palantir recently signed a $480 million contract to provide improved intelligence to combatant commands with the Pentagon’s Chief Data and AI Office, or CDAO, to work on the Pentagon’s Connect Everything effort.

More than half of Palantir’s revenue in 2024 came from government business, according to a recent financial report. In fiscal 2023, the company’s government contracts brought in $1.2 billion in revenue. Most of that was defense.

Gallagher spoke to Defense One about how he intends to help the technology company open up new areas of activity, such as in space.

What attracted you to this role?

I have dedicated my adult life to defense, to the defense of our country, first in the Marine Corps as a counterintelligence and intelligence officer, and then in Congress as chairman of the China Committee and chairman of the Subcommittee on Innovation in the Armed Services.

So I see this as an opportunity to continue this mission, the mission of defending the country, preventing World War III, in the private sector. And I think those are the stakes. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration.

If you look at the geopolitical landscape, you see an axis of chaos led by communist China, but including Iran and Russia, trying to undermine, if not destroy, the free world. And I think Palantir is at the forefront of deterrence in the 21st century—an era of software-defined warfare where technological supremacy defines geopolitical survival. And that was the main insight that came out of my work on the China selection committee, how high the stakes are in the technological domain of competition.

And on the modern battlefield, I believe that armies that do not use the power of advanced algorithmic warfare systems are essentially unilaterally disarming themselves. It’s like an army with conventional weapons fighting an enemy armed with tactical nuclear weapons.

It also said that Palantir is a pioneer and a leader in revitalizing the U.S. industrial base on a broad scale, and the defense industrial base in particular, which helps communities like mine in northeastern Wisconsin, where we’re a huge manufacturing community with a huge manufacturing tradition, and now we can leverage cutting-edge software like what Palantir produces to bend metal better.

My experience on the China Commission has shown me time and again how much of corporate America refuses to defend American values, or even to consider itself an American company, and in many cases, to bow the knee to China. Palantir, on the other hand, is an unapologetic company in its defense of the West and its belief that America is a force for good in the world and worth defending against our enemies.

Have you seen it? Change How are tech companies, startups, moving into the national security space and the “build American” ethos? Do you think being Palantir’s defense chief will have an impact on that?

I think that’s certainly true in the venture capital community. I mean… the numbers kind of back it up, and there’s a ton of capital flowing into defense startups that now have a chance to survive by taking the “valley of death” route that Palantir has been struggling to navigate for (more than) two decades.

But we need more. We need to continue to make it easier for companies to compete. So I think if Palantir’s defense business continues to grow, continues to succeed, it will create a healthier defense ecosystem where it’s not just four or five status quo major defense companies that dominate, but a whole new generation of companies that can cross the valley of death and survive.

What are your priorities in this new role?

Obviously, I want to leverage Palantir’s recent success, especially winning the TITAN contract and being the first software company to serve as the primary. I think that’s kind of a vision of what the future could be. And also the recent award from CDAO… for our work on JADC2, I think that’s a phenomenal opportunity to really deploy capabilities, Maven-like capabilities across all (combatant commands).

And as you see in the Indo-Pacific every day—and this was really the goal of my eight years in Congress—we want to strengthen near-term deterrence at a time when we have a long-term fight to recapitalize our submarine fleet on these large platforms, we’re going to have to get cutting-edge, innovative technology into the hands of the warfighter as quickly as possible. And I think there’s a huge opportunity to use the second pillar of AUKUS and a lot of the collaborative efforts that we’re doing with our closest allies to do that and make sure that in the priority theater, the Indo-Pacific, we’re pursuing deterrence with the same alacrity and creativity that we would in a real war.

And beyond that, in new and emerging domains, I think the defense space presents a huge opportunity. And that’s an area where Palantir’s business is growing and I think it can grow even more. So I think there’s just going to be a lot of opportunity, not just for Palantir’s core defense business to grow, but for the entire defense industry base to be revitalized.

In terms of industrial base, you mentioned earlier that Palantir is the prime contractor for a large contract. What is your plan to engage startups, VCs, and non-conventional defense firms?

Well, fortunately, I spent almost a decade immersed in that world, from a legislator’s perspective. But a lot of my work on the (House of Representatives) Armed Services Committee focused on defense innovation, how do we create an ecosystem where more companies can succeed. And so I hope to take that network that I’ve built over a decade and apply it to my work at Palantir.

And I think Palantir, before I joined, had already established creative partnerships, not only with various next-generation defense startups like Anduril and companies like that. But also better aligned with the core defense systems because the core defense systems will continue to exist. And that’s good for America. That’s healthy. And if we can work together and connect Palantir’s cutting-edge software with some of the legacy systems or the next-generation systems and hardware that these companies are producing, I think that’s great not only for American industry, but also, again, for the warfighter. And it all comes down to the warfighter.

When will your first day be and what are your first tasks?

I’ve already started. I’ll probably be officially in the office in a few weeks, but I’ve started the indoctrination process. So my first order of business is just to learn as much as I can and really spend as much time as I can with the engineers and the core world-class talent that Palantir continues to recruit. That’s the secret sauce of the company, in my opinion. I just want to learn as much as I can and then figure out what I can do to help grow the business. And again, help the soldier who remains my North Star through all of this.

Any final thoughts?

If we look at the last few years of my service in Congress, one of the things I’m most proud of is that all of my work on national security has been bipartisan. I would argue that the (House of Representatives) China Committee was the most bipartisan committee in the 118th Congress. And what I think is exciting about the work that Palantir is doing is just keeping America safe, equipping the warfighter with cutting-edge technology, and giving our armed forces a strategic advantage. And I just look forward to working with the Department of Defense to strengthen and build on the work that’s already underway with Palantir. And it’s a really exciting opportunity, as I said at the beginning, a way, in my mind, to continue the mission that has guided my service in the Marine Corps and in Congress.

The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.