Peter Thiel shows his influence by scoring Palantir an invite to Trump's tech summit
The execs that Trump talked to included the people who run some of the most valuable companies in the US, like Tim Cook from Apple (worth over $620 billion, according to Google Finance) and Larry Page from Alphabet/Google (worth about $560 billion).
Every single other company represented at the table is publicly traded, and all but one (Elon Musk's Tesla) is worth at least $150 billion.
But one of Trump's guests didn't fit along with the other transition officials and big company CEOs: Palantir CEO Alex Karp.
Of all the tech companies invited to Trump's administration, Karp was the only tech exec who does not run a public company. In addition, Palantir is the least valuable primary tech company run by any of the guests invited - it was reportedly valued at $20 billion in its last financing round.
Trump's advisor and bridge to the tech community, investor and Facebook director Peter Thiel, founded Palantir. He was also the person who helped put together the guest list for the event, according to Trump.
"I won't tell you the hundreds of calls we've had asking to come to this meeting and I will say, and I will say Peter [Thiel] was sort of saying no, that company's too small and these are monster companies," Trump said at the meeting.
Plus, Palantir generates a lot of its revenue from government contracts and it stands to benefit greatly from a close relationship with the incoming administration.
Here's the full list of tech types Trump invited and how much their companies are worth as of the close of trading on Wednesday, according to Google Finance.
Check out where Palantir ranks:
Tim Cook, Apple CEO - $624 billion
Larry Page, Alphabet CEO, and Eric Schmidt, Chairman - $560 billion
Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, and Brad Smith, President - $494 billion
Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, Blue Origin, owner of the Washington Post - $372 billion (Amazon)
Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO - $354 billion
Brian Krzanich, Intel CEO - $177 billion
Safra Catz, Oracle CEO - $169 billion
Ginni Rometty, IBM CEO - $163 billion
Chuck Robbins, Cisco CEO - $155 billion
Elon Musk, Tesla and SpaceX CEO - $33 billion (Tesla), $12 billion (SpaceX private valuation)
Alex Karp, Palantir CEO - $20 billion (last private valuation, but Thiel's firm reportedly valued it during its last funding round at $12.7 billion)