Justin Bieber has been accused of hypocrisyafter performing a private poolside set at an exclusive California conference attended by Palantir Technologies chief executive Alex Karp, three months after wearing an 'ICE Out' pin on the Grammy Awards red carpet in protest of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Bieber headlined the WNDR conference on 6 May 2026, an invitation-only gathering organised by entertainment executive Jeffrey Katzenberg at theRosewood Miramar Beach hotel in Montecito, California. The event, first reported by Puck's Dylan Byers, drew Fortune 100 chief executives, defence technology founders, and cultural figures including Oprah Winfrey, James Cameron, Julia Roberts, former Disney CEO Bob Iger, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, FIFA President Gianni Infantino andcomedians Chris Rock and Trevor Noah.
Photos from the evening, leaked through a Rosewood employee's Instagram story, spread rapidly on social media, reigniting a debate about the limits of celebrity activism.
On 1 February 2026, Justin and Hailey Bieber arrived at the 68th Grammy Awards at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles sporting small'ICE Out' pins, joining Billie Eilish and other artists in a collective display of opposition to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.
The pins carried a specific political charge that night, with multiple Grammy nominees delivering acceptance speeches condemning the Trump administration's deportation campaign. The cumulative effect made the ceremony one of the most politically vocal in its recent history.
Bieber did not speak publicly from the stage about immigration enforcement. His protest was limited to the pin itself. Even so, the visual resonated. For his fanbase and across social media, wearing the pin at music's most watched night carried implicit weight, a signal that the artist aligned himself with immigrant communities being targeted by federal agents.
Three months later, images of him performing an approximately 30-minute set for an audience that included the head of a company holding more than £63.5 million ($81 million) in active contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement sharpened the contrast considerably. His representatives did not respond to requests for comment on the performance or the apparent tension between the two events.
Justin Bieber performed a private concert at the Rosewood Hotel for executives of Palantir TechnologiesOrganization responsible for Donald Trump’s deportation database systems and for the software used in drones during the war with Iran. The info was leaked by a hotel employee.pic.twitter.com/5RR4IpRlCc
Palantir's relationship with ICE is not incidental. The Denver-based data analytics firm, co-founded by billionaire Peter Thiel, has been building surveillance and case-management tools for the agency since at least 2011. A two-year investigation by Georgetown Law'sCenter on Privacy & Technologyfound that between 2008 and 2021, ICE awarded Palantir a total of £146 million ($186.6 million) in contracts, making it the agency's third largest contractor by value.
Since the start of Trump's second administration in January 2025, those contracts have expanded significantly. In April 2025,ICE awarded Palantir a £23.6 million ($30 million) sole-source contractfor a platform called ImmigrationOS, the Immigration Lifecycle Operating System.
Source: International Business Times UK
