Palantir Technologies Inc. PLTR continues to “reshape modern warfare” despite recent market volatility, with shares down 10.51% year-to-date after surging over 306% in the past year, according to co-founder Joe Lonsdale.
What Happened: “It’s great to see Palantir being recognized as an extremely valuable company,” Lonsdale said during a CNBC appearance on Thursday, highlighting the company’s $155 billion market capitalization that now exceeds traditional defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. LMT.
The data analytics giant’s rapid growth gained even more momentum after President-elect Donald Trump‘s victory, with shares soaring more than 50% from the election to year-end.
CEO Alex Karp emphasized the company’s military applications, stating, “We’ve managed our model in AI so that it actually delivers value — on the battlefield, to bring soldiers home, to kill enemies, or commercially, to change margins.”
This transformation from a data organization platform to an AI powerhouse nearly didn’t happen. Lonsdale revealed on the Shawn Ryan show that Palantir “came really close to dying” in its early years before Karp secured crucial FBI and CIA contracts. “A few of our top guys were basically ready to quit,” he recalled, highlighting the company’s dramatic turnaround.
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Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives remains bullish, predicting 2025 will mark a breakthrough year for Palantir’s AI platform. The company’s expanding influence is further evidenced by its recent partnership with Amazon Web Services to provide Anthropic’s Claude AI models to U.S. intelligence agencies.
Why It Matters: While 44% of Palantir’s revenue still comes from government contracts, Lonsdale emphasized that the majority of growth now stems from commercial applications.
This diversification, coupled with the company’s technological edge over traditional defense contractors, positions Palantir at the forefront of both military modernization and commercial AI deployment despite recent market fluctuations.
“There’s a growing recognition worldwide of the need for cutting-edge defense solutions,” Lonsdale said. “Interestingly, modest reductions in defense budgets can benefit newer, innovative defense firms. Legacy contractors often operate with inefficiencies that make their solutions far more expensive.”
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