Palantir Says It Cannot Switch Off NATO's Maven AI

Palantir has moved to calm European nerves about one of the most sensitive pieces of US software in the alliance. Louis Mosley, the company’s executive vice president for the UK and Europe, told Reuters that neither Palantir nor the US government can switch off the Maven Smart System, the AI platform used by NATO’s military headquarters and several European armed forces.

“There are no kill switches,” Mosley said in an interview in Brussels on Wednesday, according to Reuters. “There’s no ability for Palantir or the US government to reach in and switch it off.”

The remarks land in a week when Europe’s reliance on American defence technology is under unusual scrutiny. Ukraine reported last week that its use of Starshield, the military-grade satellite service that runs on SpaceX’s Starlink network, had been restricted. US and Ukrainian officials and Elon Musk have offered conflicting explanations, Reuters reports, while Ukrainian and European officials said they suspected a political motive because the move came after Trump demanded that Ukraine stop hitting Russian oil refineries. TSN has followed the Starshield dispute since it began.

Palantir’s assurance, in its own words

Mosley addressed the Starlink episode directly. “What we have seen in the news over the past few days around Starlink is extremely concerning,” he told Reuters. “But as concerns Palantir, I can provide categorical reassurance that where customers have bought our software, they are in full operational control of that software.”

He also addressed the question of who runs the system day to day. Mosley said it was “entirely at the discretion of the customer” whether Palantir employees were involved in operating it, and that any such staff would be citizens of the country concerned with the required security clearance, according to Reuters. “It can absolutely be operated independently of us,” he said, adding that many military and corporate customers around the world already do so.

The assurance is Palantir’s own. Reuters did not report any independent assessment of how Maven is deployed, and the company did not set out the technical arrangements behind the claim in the interview as reported.

Germany and France have stayed out

NATO bought Maven for its Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe in 2025 and declared in June that the system had reached “full technical operational capability”, Reuters says. Reuters describes Maven as a system that processes large volumes of sensor data to speed up military decision-making.

Not every ally has followed. Germany and France have not adopted Maven for their own armed forces, citing concerns about relying on a US company at a time of frequent tension between President Donald Trump and European leaders, according to Reuters. In April, the head of Germany’s cyber command ruled out buying the system, saying it was “inconceivable” for employees of a private company to have access to the country’s national military database.

Mosley’s comments on customer control and staffing speak to both of those worries: whether a US supplier, or its government, could cut access, and whether outsiders would sit inside a national military network.

The backdrop is a wider worry. The Starshield episode has prompted fresh concern among European policymakers that the continent depends too heavily on US defence technology that could be cut off, limiting its ability to defend itself, Reuters reports.

The Starlink case shows why ownership terms matter. On 21 October, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Ukraine’s access was “governed by a private commercial contract”, as TSN reported from Reuters’ account, placing the decision with the supplier rather than the White House. Mosley’s pitch is the opposite arrangement: once a customer has bought Palantir’s software, he says, the customer controls it and the supplier has no lever to pull.

For European buyers, the test is whether contracts and deployments match that promise. Reuters reported no response from NATO, Berlin or Paris to Mosley’s remarks.