(Bloomberg) — Palantir Technologies Inc. surprised everyone on Tuesday by announcing it had relocated its headquarters from Denver to Miami in a brief social media post.
The firm has offered few details beyond its post on X, which read: “We have moved our headquarters to Miami, Florida.”
Back in Colorado, aides to the governor and Denver’s mayor offices said they had no advance notice. In Florida, boosters of the region’s insipid tech scene cheered the news as another validation of efforts to make its sunshine and low-tax regime a lure for businesses and billionaires.
A 10-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday filled in a few more details. Palantir listed its new address for “principal executive offices,” which tracks to a co-working space in Aventura, about 17 miles north of downtown Miami.
The location perhaps speaks to the hurried nature of the move and the fact that Palantir — at least initially — isn’t likely to have a huge number of employees on the ground. Other companies that have moved their headquarters to South Florida in recent years, like Citadel, have kept the bulk of employees in major financial capitals such as New York — even as top executives like Ken Griffin decamped to the south.
To be sure, Palantir is looking for more permanent office space in prime locations in Miami, including Wynwood, Brickell or Coral Gables, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.
A Palantir spokesperson declined to comment. A receptionist at the Industrious co-working space in Aventura declined to say whether Palantir was a tenant when contacted by phone.
With the headquarter move, Palantir, with a market capitalization of about $332 billion, would become the most valuable publicly traded company officially based in Florida, far surpassing NextEra Energy Inc. At the end of last year, the company reported 4,429 full-time employees, 28% of them outside the US. The company continues to maintain other offices in locations including Palo Alto, California, New York and Washington DC.
While Colorado state’s corporate tax is lower than Florida, the “Sunshine State” doesn’t charge personal income tax, which is an incentive for employees based there. And if finance firms are any indication, South Florida tends to attract C-suite type executives first, given the pricey real estate.
Peter Thiel, the billionaire tech veteran who is chairman of Palantir, recently relocated his own investment firm to an office in Wynwood, a growing arts, shopping and entertainment district in Miami. He also owns a home in the city and his Founders Fund keeps an office there.
