Boris Johnson and his then-chief adviser Dominic Cummings held a private meeting with Peter Thiel, the billionaire co-founder of US data giant Palantir, a year before the company was awarded a central role in the NHS’s pandemic response, according to leaked government files.
The documents, part of a cache known as the “Boris Files” and obtained by transparency group Distributed Denial of Secrets, show that Johnson and Cummings met Thiel at Downing Street on 28 August 2019. The meeting was marked as “private” in Johnson’s activity log but was not disclosed in the official government record of ministerial meetings.
The date coincided with Johnson informing the Queen of his decision to prorogue parliament to push through his Brexit plans, a move that sparked widespread backlash.
The failure to disclose the meeting raises questions over compliance with the ministerial code, which requires all official engagements to be made public unless they are deemed personal or political in nature. Thiel, who is not a Conservative Party donor and is barred from contributing to UK politics as a US citizen, does not appear to fall under those exemptions.
Thiel has previously accused the NHS of “making people sick” and claimed the UK suffers from “Stockholm syndrome” in its support for the health service. He co-founded Palantir, a firm with links to the CIA, which has since become deeply embedded in the UK’s health infrastructure.
Palantir initially worked with the NHS during the pandemic for a nominal £1 contract to manage health data before securing follow-on contracts worth £60m. In 2023, it won the £330m federated data platform contract, the largest IT deal ever awarded by the NHS.
The company’s role has drawn scrutiny from privacy campaigners, though NHS Digital has insisted that all data remains under government ownership. Palantir has also faced criticism for supplying technology to the Israel Defense Forces and to US immigration enforcement under Donald Trump.
Neither Johnson nor Thiel responded to requests for comment.