The Authoritarian Stack: How Venture Capital and Authoritarian Tech Are Rewiring Democracy

Across the United States—and increasingly in Europe—a new form of power is emerging: a fusion of venture capital, technology, and ideology that is quietly rewriting the architecture of democratic governance.

This project, developed with the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, maps the “Authoritarian Stack”—a network of firms, funds, and political actors turning core state functions into private platforms. 

Based on an open-source dataset of 245 actors, thousands of verified connections, and $45 billion in documented financial flows, the study exposes how companies such as Palantir, Anduril, and SpaceX—backed by the powerful American tech-right network around Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, Alex Karp, and Elon Musk—are becoming the operating system of government itself.

These systems now run everything from battlefield intelligence to welfare budgets, embedding private algorithms deep within public decision-making. The report warns that this model is spreading rapidly across Europe, from Palantir’s NHS contracts in the UK to Anduril’s defense partnerships in Germany and NATO’s growing reliance on U.S. private platforms.

The danger is clear: Europe’s digital dependence is becoming political dependence.

To defend democratic sovereignty, the study calls for a coordinated European response—such as the EuroStack—built on public-interest technology, open standards, and democratic governance.

Its message is urgent and simple: Democracy cannot survive on authoritarian infrastructure.

Full report and dataset available here: authoritarian-stack.info