Palantir hit a record high on Tuesday, closing with a 7.9% jump, but it wasn’t enough to stop the rest of the market from sliding. The S&P 500 dropped 0.49% to close at 6,299.19, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.65%, ending at 20,916.55.
The Dow gave up 61.90 points, closing at 44,111.74. That came just one day after the Dow had rebounded almost 600 points from Friday’s steep 500-point loss, triggered by a weak jobs report that showed long-running cracks in the U.S. labor market.
The pressure on Tuesday came from Trump’s new tariff threats and more signs that the economy is cooling off. Traders were rattled by disappointing economic data and the idea that higher costs might be coming soon. Amid all that, Palantir became the outlier.
Palantir revenue spikes as contracts pour in
Palantir reported quarterly revenue of $1.05 billion, crushing the $940 million expected by analysts at LSEG. That’s a 48% increase compared to last year, and the first time the company has ever crossed the $1 billion mark in a single quarter. A huge chunk of that came from government contracts, which now make up a growing part of Palantir’s business.
Just last week, the U.S. Army decided to consolidate multiple Palantir deals into a single long-term contract. That deal could be worth $10 billion over 10 years, giving Palantir a major pipeline of steady revenue.
In April, the company also signed a $30 million contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to build a new system called “ImmigrationOS”, designed to track migrant data and speed up deportations.
The surge in government work didn’t happen in a vacuum. Palantir’s rise is directly tied to Donald Trump’s new spending bill, which includes around $300 billion to overhaul defense, military, and border security infrastructure.
Tucked into that bill is a $6 billion fund for autonomous surveillance towers. And only one company, Anduril, has been cleared to supply them. But Palantir, a longtime defense contractor and Peter Thiel-backed data group, is one of the other major firms set to benefit from that money.
Trump’s spending package came with a twist. The surveillance tower money must go to towers “tested and accepted by US CBP to deliver autonomous capabilities.”
That requirement practically guarantees more business for Anduril, which makes those exact towers and has already supplied them to Customs and Border Protection at both the Mexican and Canadian borders.
But Palantir is clearly part of the same inner circle; backed by Thiel, tapped for immigration work, and now sitting on billion-dollar military deals.
Trump allies hold big stakes in Palantir and Anduril
Palantir’s government revenue came through deep political connections. Public filings show White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller owns at least $100,000 worth of Palantir shares in a brokerage account set up for his child.
Several other officials have smaller investments in the company. Meanwhile, Donald Trump Jr. joined 1789 Capital last year, an investment group that backed Anduril early on. That firm also invested in another Thiel-linked defense startup called Hadrian, which manufactures defense components.
Shyam Sankar, Palantir’s chief technology officer, recently joined the U.S. Army Reserves under a special program designed to bring in private sector tech executives.
His new role is tied to building out what officials are calling a new AI-powered military-industrial base. Other names involved include leaders from Meta and OpenAI, all working to help the Pentagon modernize systems using artificial intelligence.
Anduril, founded by Palmer Luckey, the same guy who sold Oculus to Meta, has been a key player in the same space. The company already supplies CBP with surveillance towers and now stands to gain heavily from Trump’s bill.
But it’s not just about hardware anymore. Palantir’s software plays a major role in immigration enforcement, defense analytics, and military intelligence.
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