In late April, Palantir — the software program firm that, lately, has maybe turn into greatest recognized for its protection business contracts and work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement — introduced that it might be including new merchandise to its merch retailer. The newest providing was a cotton chore coat.
At $239 and in shiny blue and black choices, the jacket appears like a typical providing that has, by way of photographer Bill Cunningham, trickled down into mainstream menswear for years. This jacket is a pastiche of nineteenth century French workwear that was worn by folks truly doing bodily labor; the one noticeable distinction is {that a} dainty Palantir brand seems on the breast pocket.
The jacket ruffled feathers, to place it calmly. One TikTok described it as “Evil boring French workwear for evil boring guys.” The extra sartorially inclined questioned why Palantir, as a cheerleader of US navy would possibly, wouldn’t make one thing impressed by American workwear. Nonetheless, by the tip of its on-sale day, the 420 models Palantir produced had bought out. (Palantir declined to remark for this story.)
For over a 12 months, together with its merch, Palantir has been attempting to promote the concept that it is, actually, a lifestyle brand. In a credulous interview with GQ main as much as the discharge of the jackets, a Palantir worker told the magazine that the corporate “exists to make sure that the establishments that energy america and its allies have the perfect software program capabilities on Earth,” and that sporting Palantir-branded clothes was a manner for different folks to hitch their wagon to this ideology. As for what sporting Palantir merchandise would characterize, there are mentions of “supporting our warfighters,” “strengthening Western establishments,” and being apolitical. Many of the clothes don’t clearly sign this stuff — there’s no stars and stripes iconography or STAND FOR THE FLAG, KNEEL FOR THE FALLEN-type slogans. As an alternative, it’s Palantir speaking to itself and its supporters; chore coat wearers would possibly earnestly imagine in these values, however their clothes, not less than, is a advertising and marketing train for the corporate itself.
“It is sensible to me. I feel it’s truly actually sensible of Palantir to need this, to wish to be on T-shirts and to wish to be one thing that folks put on, even mockingly,” says Avery Trufelman, a vogue journalist and host of Articles of Curiosity, a podcast that final 12 months detailed the outside business and its long-running ties to the navy. “It’s sort of a foul transfer to say you wish to be cool — that’s not cool. However the preliminary aspiration is de facto, actually sensible.”
As Articles of Curiosity documented, vogue and the navy have a deeply entangled historical past — from bomber jackets and fight boots to area jackets and khakis, our up to date wardrobes are suffering from clothes that has origins in navy use. Some family identify manufacturers like Patagonia have also contracted with the military along with promoting fleece jackets to crunchy outside sorts.
Palantir’s merch is a brand new manner for the laptop computer class to sign model alignment
It’s additionally not so uncommon {that a} protection contractor would wind up making merchandise for the buyer market, Trufelman says: artificial insulation by PrimaLoft was initially developed for the US navy however now strains jackets bought at REI and bedding at L.L. Bean. Camouflage prints supposed for elite troopers are now also part of the uniform of modern civilians. The distinction, after all, is that Palantir doesn’t actually make garments: It makes highly effective (and generally poorly understood) software program that even some of its own employees are more and more involved about. Palantir’s merch serves no tactical goal for “warfighters,” however is a brand new manner for the laptop computer class to sign model alignment.
“Palantir doing their model of it’s wise, as a result of who’re the folks which are shopping for their garments? They’re usually city data employees, those that ship e mail all day,” says Derek Man, a menswear author. (It’s possible you’ll know him as “The Menswear Man” on social media.) “It’s only a very modern garment in the intervening time for that sort of class.”
Palantir has one thing of a cult following already, partially as a result of it has made some investors very rich. It has an engaged, committed base of retail investors and followers who debate what to do about Palantir’s “PR issues” and observe firm goings-on obsessively. Palantir itself additionally communicates straight with particular person buyers or fan communities. (Palantir seems to have beforehand even hired a moderator from the corporate’s Subreddit right into a communications position.) A line of merchandise past the standard tote bag is a manner for Palantir to show these followers and buyers into strolling billboards.
Connor, a Palantir fan and merch buyer who describes himself as “fairly bullish” on the corporate, additionally owns tech merch from Tesla, Google, OpenAI, and Apple. “It’s enjoyable to put on these things, and so they’re a nod in the direction of expertise and types I like or am related to as a result of that’s part of my character,” Connor mentioned in a message to The Verge.
Alex, one other Palantir fan, has collected a number of merch objects from the corporate courting again to the early 2000s that he acquired secondhand like a zip-up sweatshirt issued to workers, in addition to more moderen releases. (Regardless of their help for Palantir, each Connor and Alex requested that The Verge not use their full names: Connor, as a result of he limits his on-line presence, and Alex, because of the “uptick in consideration” that the corporate has gotten over their merch. Alex acknowledged that Palantir is a part of his funding portfolio.) Alex says he sees Palantir as a foil to different elements of the tech business which have “parasitically” extracted customers’ knowledge, data, and private ideas.
“I see Palantir as being the antithesis of that, the place they’re attempting to get the brightest minds collectively to create expertise that can higher serve us versus simply use us for advert income,” Alex says. (Palantir’s expertise can be utilized in promoting, together with a platform announced in 2025 touted by a companion as “the holy grail of selling delivered to life.”)
Alex says he wears Palantir merchandise as a “dialog piece” hoping to debate misconceptions in regards to the firm — however there have been few takers. Principally, he says folks would possibly say one thing beneath their breath in regards to the merch; he has additionally discovered posts on X by strangers referencing a “dude in a Palantir shirt” that he believes are about him. A barista as soon as requested him his ideas on Palantir expertise being used to kill Palestinians, he says (Palantir has mentioned Israel uses its technology for “war-related missions”).
“Each different time I’ve worn (Palantir) stuff … folks will tweet about it, however they’ll by no means truly confront me about it, which is weird,” Alex says.
Palantir is clearly placing in additional effort to its merchandise than merely drop-shipping low cost T-shirts that includes its brand — the corporate instructed GQ it’ll introduce a tennis assortment in June. However even with barely elevated merchandise, the output exhibits the boundaries of a expertise firm attempting to sign style or refinement relating to artwork and tradition. An merchandise beforehand on the market within the Palantir store is a white crewneck sweatshirt with daring purple lettering studying “SILICON VALLEY DROPOUTS.” Many individuals instantly famous the similarities between the Palantir crewneck and Off-White, the model based by the late fashion designer Virgil Abloh. The crewneck seemed to be referencing Abloh’s designs, like T-shirts with scattered, minimal typography in a mode that was significantly stylish a decade in the past.
“I don’t know what (Palantir is) attempting to realize, however you possibly can’t design your manner into coolness like that. It takes a a lot bigger effort. It takes a special sort of cultural positioning,” says Man, the menswear author. “It requires much more than simply designing merch. I imply, if it was that straightforward to rebrand your self, then all people would do it.”
Alex, who has a artistic background, skipped the Off-White-style sweatshirt. “That piece particularly completely screamed, like, a wealthy dude that retailers at Bloomingdale’s that wishes to decorate like a dude in his mid-20s,” he says. “I noticed the piece for what it was and it was distasteful.”
The tech guys the merchandise cater to dwell in a bubble, the place style — a recent buzzword — and magnificence are fed to them, Alex says.
“The stuff they’re shopping for … is already so downstream from the those that it originated from that by the point they get to it, or it’s fed to them by their algorithm or their stylist, it’s already out of vogue,” Alex says.
Something with a Palantir brand or identify on it’s inseparable from the corporate’s enterprise: Supporters will rep it as a option to sign their alignment (or their monetary ties), and anybody morally, ethically, or intellectually against the corporate will see the emblem as a marker of one thing really rotten. The Palantir merchandising effort is a manner for the corporate to get consideration on social media and hype up a base of individuals already on board with its mission (or to broaden its base to sympathetic audiences). But it surely’s one other, more durable process to create cultural cache round a model marred in criticism — no quantity of firm merch a decade behind the leading edge will change that.
The sold-out Palantir chore coat jogged my memory of one other tech agency’s adventures in merchandising: OpenAI’s employees-only (however publicly viewable) archive of company swag, which features a Dreamsicle-colored basketball and a T-shirt with a handwritten script that appears prefer it may very well be from a neighborhood pure wine bar. Buried among the many listings was OpenAI’s personal model of a chore coat, apparently from 2024, in the identical shiny blue, fake classic wash, with a bit of brand dotting the breast pocket. Regardless of coming solely a pair years earlier than Palantir’s, there isn’t any GQ article about it.
Palantir’s efforts to talk on to its base of followers additionally delivered to thoughts a extra quaint branding stunt: an Anthropic pop-up final October, hosted within the West Village in New York Metropolis. Marketed as an anti-AI slop gathering, attendees lined up down the block for a cup of espresso and a free baseball cap embroidered with the phrase “pondering.”
Followers described it as “culturally coherent” and that “the aesthetic screams craft/authenticity,” clearly drawing a line between Anthropic’s instruments and people of its opponents extra involved with scale. If Palantir is the approach to life model for a bunch unapologetically hyped on Western navy energy, Claude is the chatbot for the creatives, the dreamers, and the thinkers — not less than, that’s what the merch is attempting to say.
I stored scrolling via the various cloying merchandise within the OpenAI store till I hit the primary merchandise listed on the backside of the web page: a baseball cap from September 2024, a full 12 months earlier than Anthropic’s “pondering” espresso store pop-up. “Nonetheless pondering” is embroidered on it.
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