Palantir has a new enemy, and it is the way most of the AI industry makes money. Its nine-point manifesto tells institutions to hoard their data, own their model weights, and stop “tokenmaxxing.” It is a pitch dressed as a principle.
On Tuesday, Palantir posted its “thoughts on the importance of AI sovereignty” on X. The thread runs to nine numbered commandments, first flagged by Business Insider. Boiled down, they tell any company, government, or army the same thing. Whoever controls your data and your models controls your future. So do not hand either to someone else.
The language is grand. The first point declares that “your AI sovereignty dictates your institution’s future.” The second warns that “data retention is your treasure.” Point four is blunter: “Controlling your weights is controlling your fate.” Weights are the numbers that encode what a model has learned. Palantir casts them as an organisation’s crown jewels.
The war on tokenmaxxing
The sharpest barb targets the frontier labs. Palantir attacks “tokenmaxxing,” the habit of spending as much as possible on AI. It calls the practice “the addictive feeling of false progress.” Heavy token use, it argues, rewards throwaway scripts over solid software. Then comes the tell: “There is a reason why those selling tokens refuse to charge based on value.”
