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TechFeb 5, 2025

Palantir Caps Off Record 2024 With Colorful Shareholder Note About Violence, the Superiority of the West, and the AI Revolution

Military Software

Noah Weidner

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Palantir CEO Alex Karp is one of the most eccentric characters on Wall Street, a self-professed socialist who ski races in corporate updates and makes excitable monologues on earning calls. But after decades of being called “crazy,” the AI-oriented defense contractor has proved doubters wrong, rallying 340% last year and joining the S&P 500. Despite those lofty gains, Karp and Palantirians have a message to Wall Street — we’re just getting started.

Karp has hitched his company’s fortunes to creating AI that reinforces the strength of the West, underscoring this view in a bold Q4 shareholder letter, where he says that we are in the “earliest stages” of a “revolution that will play out over years and decades.”
He elaborates, adding that Palantir has built strength since “adversaries and antagonists will never respond to anything but [that]” and progressive qualities like tolerance and openness won’t necessarily “protect us and win the day.”

But what does that have to do with earnings? Palantir, a product of Karp and college roommate Peter Thiel, among other founders, has exploded since its 2020 IPO by presenting itself as Silicon Valley’s preeminent defense contractor. And with all-new AI tech, the firm’s government revenues rose 45%, a figure only dwarfed by the 64% march in revenues from American enterprises. Its messaging is part of what it’s selling — one of the most expensive stocks in history, with a valuation surpassing four of the next largest defense contractors combined.