Joe Lonsadale

Political Ideology

Right-Wing Chauvinism

• Lonsdale has advocated for a return to public executions because the world needs more "masculine leadership.” In a tweet, Lonsdale wrote, “If I’m in charge later, we won’t just have a three strikes law. We will quickly try and hang men after three violent crimes. And yes, we will do it in public to deter others. Our society needs balance. It’s time to bring back masculine leadership to protect our most vulnerable.”
• In the days after the U.S. military invaded Venezuela and abducted President Maduro in January 2026, Lonsdale reposted a post by an anonymous user on X stating: “Commies aren’t allowed in this hemisphere and every one of them should be blown up along with their gravesites.” Lonsdale agreed, adding, “Exactly. What did you think founding Palantir was supposed to be about?” In response to a news outlet about the episode, Lonsdale said “I created Palantir and hired a huge number of my smartest friends to work together to save Western Civilization from our adversaries, especially communists and Islamists, while also reducing waste and fraud, and preserving civil liberties.”
• On X, Lonsdale called men in “important positions” who take paternity leave to take care of their children “losers.”

Controversies

• Through his think tank, the Cicero Institute, Lonsdale aggressively pursues policies that criminalize homelessness. As reported by Supreme Transparency, on his podcast, Lonsdale and one of Cicero’s senior advisors suggested that the public should return to calling unhoused people “vagrants,” “bums,” and “tramps.”
• Lonsdale is a devoted disciple of Peter Thiel, calling him a “colleague, friend, and intellectual sparring partner for almost twenty-five years.” Thiel hosted a four-part lecture series on the Antrichrist, saying, “In the 21st century, the Antichrist is a Luddite who wants to stop all science. It’s someone like Greta [Thunberg] or [AI critic] Eliezer [Yudkowsky].” Politico reported that Thiel “warn[ed] of false prophets using AI regulations to gain totalitarian power and usher in a biblical apocalypse." After Thiel faced public backlash, Lonsdale came to his defense. In a blog post entitled “Taking Thiel Seriously on the Antichrist," Lonsdale wrote, “Peter is not just one of the leading investors or entrepreneurs, but thinkers of our time.”
• Lonsdale co-founded the unaccredited, “anti-woke” University of Austin, with CBS News Editor Bari Weiss. The school has some far-right, billionaire backers devoted to gutting and reshaping higher education in their image. Lonsdale has referred to Gen Z college students as a “Loser generation.”
• According to Fortune, “In the early 2010s, Lonsdale was accused of sexual assault by a student at Stanford while he was serving as a mentor in a tech entrepreneurship class. He was banned from the Stanford campus and from mentoring undergraduates for 10 years. While the assault charges were later dropped, Lonsdale acknowledged violating a rule prohibiting consensual relationships between mentors and students.”
• Lonsdale is an outspoken opponent of the ultrawealthy paying a wealth tax. He moved from California to Texas in part to avoid paying taxes.

Obscene spending

• Lonsdale owns an 11-bedroom mansion in Austin, Texas currently valued at $8 million.

Enabling

Deportation Industrial Complex

Lonsdale is a co-founder of Palantir, which has, since 2014, been the corporate backbone of ICE’s immigrant surveillance and disappearance apparatus. The surveillance tech company, in which Lonsdale still has a stake estimated by Forbes to be worth $1 billion, provides the agency with key surveillance software to analyze massive amounts of personal data — including phone numbers, addresses, financial information, social media profiles — to track and locate their targets. ICE is using Palantir’s technology to ramp up its efforts to find, detail, and deport immigrants around the country.

This relationship has expanded under Trump and Vance. In April 2025, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) awarded Palantir an additional $30 million to build “ImmigrationOS,” a new deportation surveillance platform that will use near real-time data to locate individuals for ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations, the division responsible for raids, detention and deportations.

Criminalizing Homelessness

Lonsdale and his wife founded and continue to fund The Cicero Institute, a think tank behind the rapid criminalization and villainizing of homelessness across the country. The Cicero Institute advocates for draconian measures targeting unhoused people, as well as the defunding of long-term solutions to homelessness and housing unaffordability. Template state legislation written by Cicero allows for a $5,000 fine for repeat violations of camping bans, and makes it easier to involuntarily commit unhoused people to psychiatric institutions, while imposing financial penalties upon cities with high rates of homelessness and siphoning money away from permanent housing for unhoused people.

Alongside other rightwing think tanks, Cicero is leading an all-out propaganda campaign to convince Americans to be cruel towards people sleeping on the street. They argue that lax law enforcement–not astronomical rents–is the driving factor behind rising numbers of tent cities. Cicero staff have traveled across the country advocating for their legislation criminalizing homelessness. According to In These Times, “The Cicero Institute’s policies fly in the face of decades of social scientific research showing that criminalization is expensive, counterproductive and sometimes deadly—as when sweeps seize life-saving medications or displace people to hazardous locations. By saddling unhoused people with criminal records or unpayable fees, such measures make it harder for unhoused people to exit homelessness.” Cicero spent at least $1.1 million on lobbying in 2023 alone. Elements of the legislation have been introduced in 15 states and passed in eight. Some of the group’s favorite policies were included in Project 2025. Cicero even filed an amicus brief advocating for the constitutionality of policies that effectively criminalize homelessness with the Supreme Court.

As reported by Supreme Transparency, on his podcast, Lonsdale and one of Cicero’s senior advisors suggested that the public should return to calling unhoused people “vagrants,” “bums,” and “tramps.”

Trump Administration

Lonsdale is a political confidant to Elon Musk and, along with his mentor Peter Thiel, played an integral role in rallying Silicon Valley billionaires behind Trump in the leadup to the 2024 election. Lonsdale led fundraising for the Trump Super PAC, America PAC, which raised more than $230 million from Musk alone. Lonsdale led fundraising outreach for the PAC, encouraging his network of Silicon Valley tech executives to donate and donating $1 million from his own company. The day after the election, Lonsdale tweeted, “It’s morning again in America.” And then, “Daddy’s home.”

• Data for data visualizations
  • Lonsdale is worth $3.5 billion, or almost 35 times as much as the city of Austin needed to address homelessness last year.