The Information Is Reticent to Break Uncomfortable News ⇥ cnbc.com

Jennifer Elias, CNBC:

Palantir’s head of global communications said Wednesday that the company’s political shift toward the Trump administration is “concerning.”

“I think it’s going to be challenging, as a lot of the company is moving pro-Trum-, you know, is moving in a certain direction,” communications chief Lisa Gordon said in an interview at The Information’s Women in Tech, Media and Finance summit.

Palantir is just one of many businesses ingratiating itself with this administration; that much is barely notable. It would, in fact, be more newsworthy if Palantir’s leadership had a backbone and rejected the use of its software for domestic surveillance, but why would it do that? Look at this chart.

What is more curious is what happened to video from Gordon’s appearance:

The Information later removed videos of Gordon’s remarks from its YouTube, X and Instagram pages.

Jessica Lessin, editor-in-chief of The Information, explained the decision in a note to CNBC.

“In this case, I felt I wasn’t clear enough that the videos were going to be shared, so I decided to take them down. The interview remains online as it always has been and you can read it here,” she said.

Bullshit.

Other videos from the conference remain available on Instagram. If it was not “clear enough that the videos were going to be shared”, why leave those ones up? Obviously, because they are all relatively anodyne comments, so nobody really cares if they have been shared. Video of Gordon’s comments was only removed after CNBC reported on them. Perhaps the video was removed for other reasons — Gordon reportedly referenced the company’s steadfast support for Israel — but I cannot know for sure since I cannot find a single preserved copy of the video.

One can apparently read a transcript of Gordon’s remarks if they have an expensive subscription to the Information and they know to look in a story headlined “Paris Hilton Has Been Training Her AI for Years”. I cannot confirm this as I do not want to pay hundreds of dollars per year for some executive-flattering insider publication.

This video was removed either at Gordon’s request or because Lessin — or others at the Information — are scared to lose access. I expect it will backfire. I do not know that I would have been so interested in this story if it were not for the clumsy attempt to paper over some small-scale news by, of all publications, one that prides itself on its scoops.