Palantir CEO Alex Karp: selling again (Stefani Reynolds/Getty Images)

Palantir’s Alex Karp made $6.8 billion last year

It’s good to be the boss.

4/25/25 12:14PM

Palantir’s Alex Karp was compensated $6.8 billion in 2024, the company reported Friday, a remarkable figure that would seem to rank among the largest annual pay packages ever recorded for America’s well-remunerated CEO class.

The number was produced as part of the proxy statement the defense, security, and AI software company published on Friday.

Palantir CEO Alex Karp pay package — Proxy statement on actual compensation paid to Palantir CEO Alex Karp

This comes from the table in the proxy statement labeled “Compensation Actually Paid to CEO,” which is a relatively new measure of compensation the SEC began to require a couple years back. It takes into account the stock and options grants that companies use to pay executives. Palantir reports a separate “summary compensation” table that puts Karp’s pay at just $4.6 million.

The “compensation actually paid” line was added as a means of trying to better capture the total pay that executives receive, accounting for fluctuating values of stock options and other equity awards. Here’s how The New York Times’ Jeff Sommer described it last year:

“The new approach is supposed to help shareholders determine whether an executive’s compensation is aligned with their company’s stock market return. It emphasizes the annual changes in value of an executive’s current and potential stock holdings, in contrast with the traditional approach, which provides a snapshot of the estimated value of a pay package when it is granted.”

Now, given the year that Palantir’s shares had last year — it rose 340% and was the top stock in the S&P 500 — it’s perhaps not surprising that Karp would enjoy a massive payout.

OK, fine. But there’s massive, and there’s massive.

By some rankings, Karp’s “compensation actually paid” number from 2023, $1.1 billion, made him the second-highest-compensated chief executive in the US, after Tesla’s Elon Musk, who made $1.4 billion in 2023 by this measure. (Tesla hasn’t published its proxy statement for 2024.)

Once the total tally of riches reaped by CEOs last year is finalized, we wouldn’t be surprised to see Karp sitting on top.

Now for the record, some companies claim this measure overstates what top executives earn. Palantir would seem to be one of them. In a footnote below the the “compensation actually paid table,” proxy statement included this somewhat Orwellian qualification.

The term “compensation actually paid” or “CAP” does not reflect the amount of compensation actually paid, earned or received by him during the applicable year. Per relevant rules, Mr. Karp’s CAP was calculated by adjusting the Summary Compensation Table Total values for CEO for the applicable year.

That’s true as far as it goes. But the “summary compensation table” number for Karp would also seem to be a pretty remarkable understatement of his earnings in 2024. As we know, he sold more than $2 billion worth of stock last year.

Nia Warfield

19m

Warner Bros. Discovery jumps after Wells Fargo ups price target on dealmaking buzz

Warner Bros. Discovery shares popped 7% Tuesday after Wells Fargo raised its price target on the media giant to $14 from $13, while keeping an equal-weight rating.

The bank’s optimism stemmed largely from the media giant’s potential for dealmaking. In June, WBD announced that it would would split its operations into two companies, with the Streaming & Studios division (home to Warner Bros. Television, DC Studios, HBO, and Max) standing alone from the networks side (CNN, TNT Sports, and Discovery).

That separation could make the Streaming & Studios unit more attractive to buyers, the analysts said. They valued the segment at about $65 billion, which could translate to a takeover price north of $21 a share. Potential suitors range from Amazon and Apple to Sony and Comcast, though analysts flagged Netflix as the “most compelling” option despite its limited acquisition track record:

“While NFLX has historically not been acquisitive, [streaming and studios’] $12bn in annual content spend + library + 100+ acre studio lot offers a lot. It kickstarts a theatrical IP strategy, quickly scales video games and most importantly provides premium content to members.”

At Goldman Sachs’ Communacopia Conference this week, CEO David Zaslav also highlighted growing traction at HBO Max and hinted at future crackdowns on password sharing.

WBD shares are up 26% year-to-date, and up over 93% over the past 12 months.

Matt Phillips

26m

Duolingo up on bullish note, hopes for a user rebound

Duolingo rose by the most in nearly a month, as an analyst note painted a more bullish picture of the gamified language learning company despite a dearth of news otherwise.

A quick check-in with analysts covering the stock on Wall Street found most of them otherwise flummoxed on the reason behind the uptick Thursday.

Some, however, suggested the rise may reflect optimism that the company has been able to reverse a months-long downturn in daily active user metrics — a slump that set in after a social media backlash to a somewhat inartful LinkedIn post from the company about its AI first strategy.

The bullish analyst note, published Thursday by Citizens JMP, suggested Duolingo could be a big beneficiary from a change to Apple’s rules governing its App Store driven by a ruling on a Federal antitrust case against the company. The analysts wrote:

Apple’s recent changes to U.S. App Store rules that allow developers to steer payments to the web where fees are similar to typical credit card fees rather than Apple’s 30% fee for in -app purchases and 30% fee on subscriptions for the first year and 15% thereafter, we expect mobile app companies including Duolingo, Life360, and Grindr Inc. to unlock meaningful cost benefits.

At any rate, the next big event on the company’s calendar is its Duocon 2025 conference on Tuesday, where analysts are hoping to hear more hard information on all of the above topics.

Max Knoblauch

60m

Jeep maker Stellantis surges as CEO says the automaker is in productive tariff talks with the US

Shares of Jeep and Dodge maker Stellantis are up more than 8% in Thursday afternoon trading, following comments from the automaker’s new CEO, Antonio Filosa, at a European auto conference.

On tariffs, Filosa said that Stellantis has had a “very productive exchange of ideas” with the Trump administration on the company’s manufacturing footprint and that the environment around the levies is “getting clearer and clearer.”

The US is Stellantis’ top priority, according to Filosa, and the company has taken efforts to turn things around in the market, where it’s struggled with sales in recent years. To fuel the turnaround, Stellantis is bringing back its popular Jeep Cherokee, which it discontinued in 2023.

As of 12:45 p.m. ET, Stellantis’ trading volume was at more than 140% of its average over the past 30 days.

Matt Phillips

Tempus AI jumps on FDA clearance of AI-enabled tool to analyze cardiac MRIs

Tempus AI, a midcap medical diagnostics company that’s highlighted a push to incorporate AI technology into its products, surged on Thursday after announcing the FDA had issued a “510(k) clearance” of a new AI-enabled tool to analyze cardiac imagery from MRIs.

A 510(k) clearance — used for devices that are considered relatively low risk — essentially allows a product to be sold in the US.

While the company has never turned a profit, even on an adjusted basis, its sales are growing rapidly and the stock has had a great year, rising more than 160% in 2025.

For more on the company, check out our interview with its CEO, Eric Lefkofsky.

Tempus Receives U.S. FDA Special 510(k) Clearance for Updated Tempus Pixel Device

While the company has never turned a profit, even on an adjusted basis, its sales are growing rapidly and the stock has had a great year, rising more than 160% in 2025.

For more on the company, check out our interview with its CEO, Eric Lefkofsky.

Luke Kawa

Micron surges as Citi boosts price target to $175

Micron is on the move this morning, gapping higher and continuing to trade up double digits after Citi boosted its view on how much the shares can run.

Analyst Christopher Danely raised his price target on the memory chipmaking specialist to $175 from $150, while maintaining a “buy” rating. The average analyst price target of $151 has now been shattered by Micron’s rise today, and the stock is trading at its highest level since June 2024.

This continues Micron’s advance as OpenAI’s dogged determination to burn through cash to enhance its AI capabilities provides a broad lift to the space, punctuated by Oracle’s massive gain on Wednesday.

Call demand is running hot: just 13 minutes into the session, volumes are running at 106,157 compared to a 20-day average of 88,888.

Micron is slated to report quarterly results on September 23.