The Authoritarian Stack is a project led by Professor Francesca Bria in collaboration with xof-research.org. The site gives you a top-tier breakdown of how United States billionaires are quietly dismantling our democracy and replacing it with their privatized monopolies.

And it doesn’t stop there because they are trying to make themselves the ONLY option for European nations, as well as others across the globe.

Francesca does an exceptional job of laying out and connecting all the dots across this whole scheme that’s quickly taking over our governments and stripping away our freedoms. You can think of the complex interconnected web like a family tree, except instead of family members who want the best for you, it’s self-serving billionaire elites, their private companies, and politicians all working together to make your life and the world a living hell. They want the power of entire nations in the hands of a select few highly corrupt individuals so that they can have the final and only say in how the world operates.

“This project maps the “Authoritarian Stack”—a network of firms, funds, and political actors turning core state functions into private platforms. Based on an open-source dataset of over 250 actors, thousands of verified connections, and $45 billion in documented financial flows.”

Definitely go through the website first and see it all for yourself (complete with interactive charts and graphs). Here I aim to simplify certain terms, while greatly expanding on other concepts to give further context and a greater understanding of the ramifications this scheme has on the planet. Above all, I’m here to spread awareness of the issue because the more people who know, the more people who can make the right decisions to stop this authoritarian takeover from spreading further.

What Happened?

$10 Billion, 10 Years

On July 31st, the United States Army gave up a significant portion of its power (sovereignty) to Palantir Technologies (a private company). They merged 75 military contracts into 1. Palantir was the prime contractor for only 15 of those and a subcontractor for the other 60. Their software will now be the prime decision-making machine for the Army. The operating system our military uses to assess everything.

This is similar to putting all your eggs in one basket because it outsources an essential part of a military’s ability to function and it replaces all those other contractors in the agreements. Making it very likely that the Army will only continue to rely on Palantir more and more as the private company seeks to further strengthen its technological grip on the world.

The Palantir founder has already made it clear he couldn’t care less about democracy.

“A strategic handover of core military functions to a private company whose founder, Peter Thiel, has declared “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”

And this was said in 2009. The U.S. government knew who they were getting in bed with for 16 years before making this deal.

What does that tell you about your alleged “democratic” government when they support and sign contracts with people like this?

Why Palantir’s Private Deal Is So Bad

No Transparency - Citizens can’t see Palantir’s financial statements, profit margins, operations, or how their taxpayer money is being spent. Shareholders can’t be voted out by the public, and there’s significantly less regulatory oversight than with public companies. With zero accountability to the public, Palantir can use the vast amounts of sensitive military and intelligence data however they see fit.
Concentrated Power - Ownership and decision-making stays with a few people. The Army will rely on Palantir’s private systems for all its information and standard operations. Meaning the private company has a direct path to coercing the U.S. military however it sees fit. The longer this deal goes on, the more Palantir sinks its teeth into key military infrastructure, making them harder and harder to replace. The military may eventually funnel all its eggs into one basket. Then Palantir can do whatever it wants with our military. Sell to them with extortionate prices, manufacture systems for obsolescence, withhold their true capabilities, extract sensitive military data, sell them to other nations, create unnecessary conflicts, target nations they don’t like, inject killswitches only Palantir can activate, start wars on other countries’ behalf and profit from the chaos in a variety of different ways, etc.
Unelected Power - Private owners have a massive influence over government operations and policies that affect the American people. Nothing is stopping them from spying on millions of Americans and targeting them for saying something the founders dislike. Their AI software determines who’s the enemy, not our democracy.
Regulatory Capture - Palantir can hold private conversations with former colleagues and friends turned government officials and lobby to write rules that benefit itself and all its venture capital buddies. Companies like this will ruin nations from the inside out. They strike government deals and grow powerful enough to survey your every move while enacting horrific policies that leave 0 rights for the citizens of a nation to stay informed or ever fight back against the tyranny.
Veil of the Revolving Door - It’s harder to track when government officials join or leave the company. This creates a scenario where Palantir is constantly fed a steady stream of vital information from decision-making processes, government weaknesses to exploit, which officials to bribe, how to most efficiently get past all the red tape and enact their self-serving policies. The revolving door of tech executives and government officials makes it even easier for Palantir to operate unregulated. When the people in charge of enforcing the law are all your friends, it should come as no surprise when they let you get away with murder/anything. It’s nothing but favoritism and special treatment all around.
You Pay to Suffer - $10 billion in hard-earned taxpayer money gets handed to already wealthy +6-figure individuals who are incentivized to keep conflict and civil unrest going at all times. All the while perfecting their systems that are able to spot, track, and neutralize any opposing threat. They aren’t paid to achieve peace. They’re paid for the absence of it.
Leadership Changes - When ownership changes hands (sale, inheritance, new leaders), critical government services are exposed to the face of a radically different leadership. Think of how Facebook ruined Instagram. Musk ruined Twitter and Google ruined YouTube. When billionaires take over something it’s always to make that product significantly worse. It’s their surveillance machine, used to track, censor, and oppress you in every way.
A Weakened Military - Even if the contract ended in 10 years time, the U.S. military will ultimately be severely weakened as a result because they outsourced some basic, fundamental tasks to a private company. It’s like working a job as a statistician or aerospace engineer and outsourcing all the math you have to do to a power-hungry dictator three blocks down the street. It’s only going to end up worse for you the longer it goes on. You’re giving your power away to someone who will 100% use it against you, and you’re making yourself even weaker the whole time by choosing to rely on them in the first place. Audits, modifications, or simply understanding the Army’s own tools becomes impossible when private companies can just say “it’s a trade secret” and block access entirely. Similar to how even public companies like Apple prevent you from making the most basic modifications to your device. Military personnel won’t even be able to fully understand their own weapons and tools that they use to kill thousands of people around the world.
Monopolistic Tendencies - Once in bed together, Palantir (the government’s supplier) becomes nearly impossible to replace. They can extort the government and charge exorbitant prices because the U.S. and other nations will have nowhere else to turn. It’s just like how the sickcare industry in America today charges you $10,000 for a Kleenex or 2 pills of a lifesaving drug you need to survive. They do it because they can, not because it costs them that much to produce. And guess who funds the government’s bill when Palantir and other private companies overcharge them? You, the taxpayer.
Feel free to list any other reasons I didn’t cover here.

Palantir’s deal comes after the US Army’s June 13, 2025, commission of 4 tech executives called to lead a new Army Executive Innovation Corps referred to as Detachment 201. They were all given the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

“The Army’s stated purpose of the initiative is to “fuse cutting-edge tech expertise with military innovation” by recruiting senior tech executives to serve part-time in the Army Reserve as senior advisors.”

Meta’s CTO Andrew Bosworth, current and former OpenAI executives Kevin Weil and Bob McGrew, and Palantir Technologies CTO Shyam Sankar were all appointed.

The government is relying on tech executives from one of the most privacy-invasive companies known to man, a company whose primary focus is releasing top-tier AI slop to infest the internet (their cancerous video generator) while purposely dumbing down its chronically lying, suicide-encouraging models and trying to get users hooked on feeding it endless streams of their information, and another company whose founder thinks democracy and freedom can no longer exist in tandem.

This is how the government of an alleged “democratic” nation tries to get ahead in the world. By hiring people from companies who have already proven they couldn’t care less about what’s best for the American people. All they care about is money, power, and more money.

Buying the Vice Presidency

In 2022, Peter Thiel broke the record for donating the most money ever to a single Senate candidate, and it was one of the largest amounts he had ever personally given to a candidate in his life. Palantir’s founder poured $15 million into getting JD Vance a Senate seat in Ohio. Vance first met Thiel in 2011, then in 2016 started working at Thiel’s venture capital firm, Mithril Capital.

When tech billionaires so clearly buy political influence like this, this enables them to not only shape critical national and worldwide policies for years to come. But it also all but guarantees them easy access to massive government contracts and the ability to profit from their influence in government decision-making for decades into the future. They impact government policies in the present while further strengthening their private companies’ influence both in governments and all around the world.

Everything these billionaires do is an investment. An investment to secure more power, money, and influence for years to come. They invest in politicians to grant them the policies that favor their business, they use those government relationships to secure massive contracts, and all the while, their companies continue to grow and outclass anything any government could ever do to stop them. Domestic organizations cease being their rivals, and they start measuring their power by the number of nations they can both control and obliterate at will.

“Silicon Valley isn’t building apps anymore.
It’s building empires.”

Tech Execs Turned Government Officials

Former tech executives from all these massive companies who don’t give a single fuck about citizens all funnel directly into high-level government positions: Chief Information Officer, Under Secretary of the Army, Federal Chief Information Officer, The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, etc.

Meaning these anti-privacy executives with the most biased and self-serving agendas imaginable go straight into our government and enact policies that solely benefit the company they just came from and have vested interests in. They do nothing but step all over and strip away the rights of citizens as they push their own agenda and further consolidate power into the hands of the elite.

All this centralized power from the already corrupt government to malicious private tech monopolies does nothing to benefit the citizens of a nation. It only makes it easier for one individual to have the final say in how you live your entire life.

They don’t seek to manipulate you through direct military force and control, but instead through the technological systems you use that are essential to everyday life.

A Nation of Taxpayers Funding Their Own Demise

Taxpayers pay the government to screw them over, the government does so through dictatorial policies, constant surveillance, and selling massive contracts to malicious tech companies. These tech companies influence even more horrible self-serving government policies, unlawfully invade every aspect of your life, and then snatch up more startups to begin the cycle all over again. As Venture capital firms continuously impose their iron grip of control over the entire tech industry.

Now let’s take a look at the modern landscape shall we:

Anytime a tech company needs money, it can ride the backing of venture capital, receive funding from a slew of rich billionaire investors, strike a government contract, or everyone’s favorite, screw over the customer with deceptive tactics and endless subscription services (think Adobe, Google, Instagram, YouTube).

Anytime the government needs money, what does it do? Fuck over its citizens and send them straight to hell. They tax the poor and middle class for breathing and absolve the rich from even having to call on their private jet to come pick them up. They just keep one running in the 49 closest states the billionaire resides in.

Anytime venture capital – just kidding, they are born with it.

Anytime a taxpayer needs money the government tells you to take out a $50,000 loan for a meaningless piece of paper that you can’t even use to wipe your ass with, and that’s after you spent 4 years learning trivial dribble out of the 30 different $1,200 paper weights you were forced to buy in-between your full-time shifts working your minimum slave wage they made sure to keep just low enough so that you could afford your can and a half of beans each month.

Taxpayers pay to get oppressed for the entirety of their lives while government officials and a few billionaires consolidate ultimate power into the hands of a select few.

Tech billionaires are currently seizing control of 5 key pillars that will form the foundation of our nation.

Palantir: The Government’s Operating System

Anduril: Autonomous Warfare

SpaceX: Cosmic Infrastructure

AI Giants + Nuclear: Energy

Crypto: Money

Increasing Energy Demands

It takes a lot to train and operate AI. The tech giants are demanding more energy to run their AI data centers, so demand for energy is exploding. Data centers currently consume ~2% of the total power in the U.S. but by 2030, that number is expected to climb to ~12%.

AI companies are inking deals to secure electricity from power companies for the next 10 years and beyond.

“Microsoft signed a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Constellation to buy all 835 megawatts of power from the restarted Three Mile Island Unit 1.

This is enough to power +800,000 homes a year. But instead, it will all go towards running Microsoft’s data center infrastructure in the region” because more AI is exactly what you need, right?

But even that’s not enough.

The current electrical grid can’t handle the power needed to run these data centers, so the AI giants are building their own infrastructure to support their data centers and decimate local communities in the process.

Bigger players like Amazon and Google are pouring money into nuclear reactor development for more intensive and long-term solutions. They are also buying data centers next to existing nuclear plants (Amazon and Talen).

“Nuclear plants can reliably produce carbon-free energy 24/7 in all weather conditions and run for up to two years without needing refueling.”

What’s Changed:

Tech companies are becoming major players in the energy sector, beyond just consumption, they’re paying for nuclear development, guaranteeing revenue for power plant operators 10+ years in advance, building private power facilities just for their data centers, driving the development and expansion of cleaner energy technology, and partnering with power companies in huge deals. All of this is completely altering the energy landscape in America today.

Everything these companies do is big, and their destruction in local communities is no different.

In the name of their shitty AI tech giants are:

Increasing energy bills for millions of already struggling locals just to fund the pockets of billionaires
Increasing air pollution and health hazards for local communities across the nation
Both increasing and lowering property values, pricing locals out of their homes and businesses, and cheapening the land they already own
Targeting the low-income communities with the least power to fight back, who suffer the most from the harmful effects and benefit the least from the technology
Bringing chronic and disruptive noise pollution to the area
Consuming massive amounts of water with next to no benefit for local communities

Some data centers can use more water per day than the entire county uses. And because of the chemicals used in cooling, once the data centers get a hold of it, the water can no longer be used for human consumption or farming.

A large data center can consume up to 5 million gallons of water a day, the equivalent usage of a town with 50,000 people. AI-powered data centers require even more.

Meta’s AI data center in Louisiana is permitted to use more than 23 million gallons per day (8.4 billion gallons annually). Google’s hyperscale data centers supporting services like Gmail averaged approximately 550,000 gallons per day, and in 2024, their most water-intensive center in Iowa consumed ~2.7 million gallons every single day.

The Monetary Structure

Traditional System:

Government → Central Bank → Democratic Accountability (in theory)
Elected officials appoint central bankers (President nominates, Senate confirms)
Meaning monetary policy is ideally made in the public’s interest

Crypto System:

Protocol Developers → Networks Rules → No Democratic Accountability
A few people design the entire monetary policy (supply limits, issuance rates, governance)
Currency holders make decisions based on the amount of money they have, it’s practically pay to play, pay to have a bigger say

Money Supply Limits

How much of the cryptocurrency will ever exist.

Bitcoin: Is forever limited to 21 million coins. No country has hard-capped their currency in this way.
Ethereum: No limit, but new currency is rate-limited. Switzerland and Hong Kong have strict limits on their national currency.
Dogecoin: No limit, it’s highly prone to inflation. Look at Zimbabwe and Venezuela to see the effects of this.

Like the foundation of a house, supply limits are built and decided on by protocol creators from the very start, and it’s extremely difficult to change once it’s in place.

Issuance Rates

How quickly new coins enter circulation and how they enter.

This determines whether the currency becomes more abundant or more scarce over time.

Governance Rules

Who makes decisions about the protocol.

These 3 choices (supply limits, issuance rates, governance rules) shape the entire economy built on that (crypto) currency. Yet only a handful of developers determine all of this. And they only do it once. Then they lock the rules in place, never to be changed again. Ultimately, people have no say in the final decisions that make up the entire monetary policy.

Crypto governance is generally plutocratic (wealth-based) rather than democratic (one person, one vote). Venture capital firms can control the direction a currency takes through their substantial early investments, and even without it, they can just buy up a large portion of the supply and increase their voting power at any time. There are structures in place to mitigate this, but it remains an inherent threat in some currencies nonetheless.

In token-weighted voting (the most common form): 1 token = 1 vote
If you own 20% of the tokens, you control 20% of the voting power, and we all know how much billionaires and lobbying industries already love buying votes. They’ve been doing it for centuries now.

Plutocracy: power proportional to wealth

Dependency Spreads

European nations are quickly giving up their power and relying on private U.S. companies as well. Making what is already a downward-spiraling disaster even worse as governments around the world rely on a small handful of malicious companies to supply their most vital needs.

It’s like a person relying on takeout to feed themselves or AI and social media to think for them and develop their “own” views. Once you need someone else to do the basics for you, you stop being an autonomous individual and you now bow down to the mercy of your supplier that you can’t live without.

“Democracy persists as a legacy interface— maintained for stability, while being systematically hollowed out and replaced.

The question now is whether democratic societies can recognize this formation for what it is—and build alternatives before the infrastructure of control becomes too deeply embedded to dislodge.”

Action Items

Stay informed with how governments and big tech decide to move
Vote in every election
Share what you learn to inform others
Thank and support Francesca
Support independent journalism
Investigate local billionaire influence
Consider candidates who refuse corporate PAC money
Boycott companies who fund pay-to-play politicians
Get others involved in helping you make a difference
Look into the widespread corruption of money in American politics
Support organizations that are actually geared toward restoring democracy
Don’t just assume voting alone is enough, the system is rigged to minimize voters impact. Do more, “only collective power can counter billionaire power”.