"The meeting, which was kept from the official record, took place on August 28, 2019, months before the UK government began forming its response to the pandemic, which would see Palantir awarded £60 million in contracts without competition, starting with a contract awarded for just £1. The US vendor went on to win a £330 million piece of work to provide the NHS Federated Data Platform (FDP), which the world's largest healthcare provider said would be core to recovery from its pandemic backlog."
"According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Palantir had already begun promoting itself to the UK government in an unconventional way. In July 2019, UK boss Louis Mosley hosted a meal attended by David Prior, chair of NHS England, after which Mosley wrote to Prior to offer a demonstration of Palantir's software and an introduction to CEO Alex Karp. Prior replied, copying in NHSX chief Matthew Gould, who he said "may already be in the loop," according to the publication."
Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings met Peter Thiel on August 28, 2019; the meeting was kept off the official record. Months later Palantir received an initial £1 contract and subsequently won roughly £60 million in non-competitive pandemic-related contracts and a further £330 million to build the NHS Federated Data Platform (FDP). The FDP was described as core to NHS recovery from the pandemic backlog. Aside from Oracle, no major global analytics vendors submitted bids, raising vendor lock-in concerns. Palantir executives had earlier promoted the company to senior NHS figures, including a July 2019 meal hosted by UK boss Louis Mosley.
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