Lord Tom Watson, the former deputy leader of the UK Labour Party, has left his role at UK Music after six years to become a senior vice president at Palantir, the American artificial intelligence and data analytics company founded by billionaire Peter Thiel. Watson announced the move on X on Friday, September 18, describing Palantir as «the most interesting company on the planet, doing work of real consequence».
Palantir, founded two decades ago with financial backing from the CIA, counts the US and Israeli militaries, ICE, the FBI, and the NHS among its clients. Watson acknowledged that the company faces «challenges» and said that while some criticism amounted to «propaganda», there were «legitimate questions about large technology companies and sovereign control». He added that part of his role would be to «correct false information while working with our engineers to ensure privacy, security and respect for sovereignty are at the heart of everything we do».
The appointment has drawn immediate criticism. Green MP Sian Berry called it «yet another example of the corrosive revolving door between politics and big business lobbying that has no place in public life». She said Palantir had «no business at all in our NHS and public services» and accused Watson of being employed to «lobby his friends in the Labour government». Similar sentiment spread on social media, with one X user writing: «You spent six years telling us you care about culture, community, and the arts, only to immediately jump ship to a US spy-tech giant founded by Peter Thiel.» Another said the «revolving door between ex-Labour politicians and corporate tech money continues to spin at supersonic speed».
Louis Mosley, head of UK and Europe at Palantir Technologies, welcomed Watson's appointment, saying he brought a «deep understanding of how AI is changing the ways the state can help people in Britain, where more than one in six Palantirians are based». Mosley noted that Watson had given up his parliamentary pass and that his Palantir contract prevented him from returning to the House of Lords as an active peer while working for the company.
Watson's tenure at UK Music was itself divisive. In 2020, the organisation was forced to defend his appointment after industry-wide criticism. A report by The Times at the time said his role had «alarmed» the British Phonographic Industry, whose members account for 85 per cent of music sales and who are among the ten music groups with directors on the UK Music board. Concerns reportedly centred on Watson's knowledge of the UK music industry and the cost of his annual salary. The report also cited controversies from his parliamentary career, particularly his support for false allegations of child sexual abuse disproved by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in early 2020, after which there were calls to block him from receiving a peerage.
Watson previously served as the Labour Party's general election co-ordinator before resigning and writing a letter to then-leader Ed Miliband in which he famously advised him to check out Castleton sibling duo Drenge, who later said they were not «totally overjoyed» about the random namecheck.