Hungarian-born American investor and philanthropist George Soros delivers a speech on January 23, 2020, at the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, eastern Switzerland.
Fabrice Kofrini | AFP | Getty Images
Soros Fund Management, an asset management company founded by billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros, has revealed that it plans to sell its stake in data analytics firm Palantir, which was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in September.
Palantir is described as a company that “knows everything about you” and its software is used by government surveillance agencies around the world for the purpose of espionage. It was co-founded in 2003 by German-American entrepreneur and venture capitalist Peter Thiel, who donated to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016.
Soros Fund Management announced this week that it “does not approve Palantir’s business practices.” Palantir did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.
Soros privately supported Palantir in early 2012 through a portfolio manager, the Family Office, founded in 1969, which is no longer with the company. It has Class A (limited voting) shares of around 1% Palantir.
SFM said it has closed all of its Palantir shares, which are not legally or contractually. It states that it will continue selling the shares as per permission.
“SFM made this investment at a time when the negative social consequences of big data were poorly understood,” the company said in a statement, adding that “SFM will not invest in Palantir today.”
This is not the first time Soros has publicly attacked a technology company. In January 2018, he stated that Google and Facebook are a “threat to society” and “impediments to innovation.”
Palantir’s market cap has nearly doubled to $ 32 billion since it went public.