Palantir up early after Friday’s late-day plunge
Retail favorite, top S&P 500 gainer, and Trump stock par excellence Palantir is up early after a partnership deal was announced with Accenture Federal Services centering on Palantir’s growing AI software business with Uncle Sam.
Essentially, Palantir will train and certify some 1,000 Accenture employees, who will install and help implement the company’s AI software packages throughout the federal government.
The deal could offer some real benefits to the way Palantir interacts with its single largest customer: the US federal government.
That relationship appears to be expanding rapidly under the Trump administration. But the increasing linkages are raising concerns both about threats to the privacy of American citizens as well as the character of the company’s leadership and the potential influence of the Palantir’s cofounder and largest individual shareholder, Peter Thiel. The Republican megadonor and right-wing ideologue famously penned a personal statement for the Cato Institute in 2009 in which he declared, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”
Just this morning, liberal American economist Robert Reich published a piece with the not particularly subtle headline, “Peter Thiel’s Palantir poses a grave threat.” The concern is not just among the liberal left, either — bro-centric podcaster Theo Von also says of Palantir, “I’m scared of it.”
Bad press doesn’t seem to pose much of a threat to the business at the moment, but the company’s federal contracting business could come in for closer scrutiny should Democrats retake control of one or perhaps both houses of Congress in next year’s midterms.
For a Palantir executive called to testify about its operations, one could imagine the utility of being able to say the software was installed and implemented by a seasoned, sleepy federal contracting company like Accenture, a potentially comforting factor for elected officials.
At any rate, the market seems to like the deal, helping the shares claw back some of the losses seen in a waterfall finish to trading last week. With few obvious catalysts, Palantir plunged in the last 10 minutes of trading Friday, pushing its losses from about 4% to more than 9%.
The deal could offer some real benefits to the way Palantir interacts with its single largest customer: the US federal government.
That relationship appears to be expanding rapidly under the Trump administration. But the increasing linkages are raising concerns both about threats to the privacy of American citizens as well as the character of the company’s leadership and the potential influence of the Palantir’s cofounder and largest individual shareholder, Peter Thiel. The Republican megadonor and right-wing ideologue famously penned a personal statement for the Cato Institute in 2009 in which he declared, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”
Just this morning, liberal American economist Robert Reich published a piece with the not particularly subtle headline, “Peter Thiel’s Palantir poses a grave threat.” The concern is not just among the liberal left, either — bro-centric podcaster Theo Von also says of Palantir, “I’m scared of it.”
Bad press doesn’t seem to pose much of a threat to the business at the moment, but the company’s federal contracting business could come in for closer scrutiny should Democrats retake control of one or perhaps both houses of Congress in next year’s midterms.
For a Palantir executive called to testify about its operations, one could imagine the utility of being able to say the software was installed and implemented by a seasoned, sleepy federal contracting company like Accenture, a potentially comforting factor for elected officials.
At any rate, the market seems to like the deal, helping the shares claw back some of the losses seen in a waterfall finish to trading last week. With few obvious catalysts, Palantir plunged in the last 10 minutes of trading Friday, pushing its losses from about 4% to more than 9%.
