Palantir is turning a long running political controversy into a financial windfall, as fresh US government contracts supercharge its sales and push its stock into the top tier of artificial intelligence winners. At the center of that surge is Palantir CEO Alex Karp, who is not just tolerating the backlash over surveillance and immigration enforcement, but actively arguing that critics have it backward.
Instead of distancing himself from the company’s most polarizing work, Karp is using the moment to defend Palantir’s surveillance technology as a safeguard for civil liberties and national security, even as the company deepens ties with the Trump administration and key agencies across the security state.
Government money, military roots
Palantir’s latest earnings underscore how central US government work has become to its business model. On its most recent call, executives highlighted Total Revenue of $1.407 billion, up 70% year over year, with US Revenue of $1.076 billion, up 93%, figures that show how quickly public sector demand is scaling. Those numbers sit on top of a broader growth story in which the company has emerged as one of the best performing AI stocks, with shares gaining 1,700% over the last three years and trading at a lofty earnings multiple that reflects investor belief in its government heavy pipeline.
That pipeline is anchored in defense and intelligence. Over the summer, the company signed an up to $10 billion contract with the Army to support its software and data needs, a decade long agreement that gives the military broad access to Palantir’s platforms to manage battlefield information and logistics. A separate report on its latest quarter noted that this past summer the company signed an up to $10 billion contract with the U.S. Army to support its software and data needs, reinforcing how central that single relationship has become to Palantir’s long term revenue visibility and to its pitch that it is now a core part of the Pentagon’s digital infrastructure.
From spycraft to the enterprise
Even as those military contracts expand, Palantir is trying to convince investors that it is more than a defense contractor. The company has been increasingly marketing what it describes as military grade AI tools to businesses through its artificial intelligence platforms, positioning its software as a way for banks, manufacturers and energy companies to fuse disparate data sets and make faster decisions. In public materials, Palantir presents its core products as flexible operating systems for data, arguing that the same technology used for counterterrorism and battlefield awareness can help corporations optimize supply chains or detect fraud.
That dual use pitch is central to Karp’s argument that Palantir is a national security asset rather than a dragnet. In one recent interview, he defended the company’s surveillance systems for immigration enforcement and other sensitive missions as tightly governed tools that rely on granular access controls and audit trails, insisting that the architecture is designed to prevent the kind of mass, unaccountable monitoring critics fear. He has framed the company’s expansion into commercial AI as proof that its platforms can be deployed responsibly in both war zones and boardrooms, a narrative that underpins the latest defense of its technology.
Karp’s combative case for more surveillance
Rather than soft pedal the controversy around immigration, Palantir CEO Alex Karp has leaned into it. Speaking about protests targeting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he argued that demonstrators should actually want more high tech surveillance, not less, because he believes precise data tools can reduce arbitrary enforcement and make it easier to focus on serious threats. In that exchange, Karp suggested that critics of ICE should “be out there protecting” the use of advanced analytics, casting opponents as naïve about how enforcement actually works.
He has repeated that argument in more formal settings. In a separate appearance, Palantir CEO Alex said protesters demonstrating against Immigration and Customs Enforcement should support the use of high tech tools by the agency, and he tied that stance directly to Palantir’s broader work with the US government, including the Department of Defense. On the latest earnings call, Karp doubled down on his data protection claim, arguing that Palantir’s work with the US government, including intelligence and immigration systems under President Trump, is structured to protect civil liberties rather than erode them, a position he reiterated in comments reported on Karp and the company’s financial results.
Ethics, patriotism and the Trump factor
Karp’s defense of Palantir is not limited to technical safeguards. He has cast the company’s mission in explicitly patriotic terms, arguing that its software is part of a deeper American story about defending liberal democracy while keeping the country safe. In one high profile conversation, he dismissed what he called “parasitic” critics who describe Palantir as a surveillance state contractor, insisting instead that its systems are designed to give accountable officials targeted insights rather than blanket visibility, a distinction he framed as the opposite of a surveillance dragnet and as a core American value.
Those arguments are intertwined with Palantir’s relationship with President Trump and his administration. At a DealBook style summit, Palantir CEO Alex proudly defended the company’s ethics and Trump ties, arguing that if the government is going to use powerful data tools, companies like his should build them with explicit safeguards rather than leave the field to less scrupulous actors. He has suggested that when Palantir encounters a capability it considers unethical, it will not “put it in our product,” a line meant to reassure skeptics that the firm is drawing internal red lines even as it deepens its role in some of the most contentious areas of federal policy.
Big numbers, bigger questions
The financial momentum behind those arguments is hard to ignore. In a summary of its latest quarter, Palantir reported a record period with revenue up 70% year over year to $1.407 billion and full year 2025 revenue of $4.475 billion, up 56%, driven in part by a surge in demand for its AI platforms. That same overview highlighted that its US commercial business is growing quickly but that government work remains the foundation, with operating margins expanding as more agencies standardize on Palantir software.
On the detailed earnings call, executives reiterated that Total Revenue was $1.407 billion, up 70% year over year and 19% sequentially, while US Revenue was $1.076 billion, up 93% year over year, figures that underline how quickly federal and state contracts are scaling. Another recap of the quarter noted that the company’s shares have gained 1,700% over the last three years and now trade at a price to earnings ratio of 140.5, a valuation that bakes in expectations that its government pipeline, including the up to $10 billion Army deal and other defense work, will continue to grow. Those numbers, pulled together across the latest Pala earnings coverage and investor materials, frame the stakes of the ethical debate: the more Palantir’s surveillance tools are woven into the machinery of government, the harder it will be to unwind them if critics’ fears prove justified.
Those critics are not limited to activists. Civil liberties groups have long warned that data fusion platforms used by agencies like the Department of Homeland Security can enable tracking and profiling at a scale that traditional oversight mechanisms struggle to police. The DHS umbrella includes Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, both of which have relied on sophisticated databases and analytics to carry out immigration enforcement and border security. Karp’s argument is that by centralizing those capabilities in a single, auditable platform, Palantir can actually make it easier for inspectors general, courts and Congress to see who accessed what data and why, but that claim will be tested as the company’s tools spread further across the security state and into the private sector.
