Palantir’s Tug of War: Production Milestones, Political Pushback, and the Burry Question That Won’t Go Away

The arithmetic of Palantir’s valuation has never been simple, but the past week has made it genuinely contradictory. On one side sits a freshly expanded partnership with PwC, a $192 million US Army production order, and a raised revenue forecast that points to as much as $8.16 billion for the year. On the other stands a familiar skeptic — Michael Burry — armed with a comparison to Accenture that cuts to the heart of how investors should think about the company’s earnings quality.

Friday’s session captured the tension neatly. The stock traded at €156.46, roughly 20 percent above its 50-day moving average yet still 13 percent below the 52-week high of €179.98 reached in early November. The previous day’s close of €156.80 followed a 7 percent single-session surge, though that still left the shares down 2.5 percent over a seven-day stretch. Short-term momentum, in other words, has yet to erase the week’s earlier losses.

A Production Contract With Real Weight

The most concrete development concerns the TITAN program. The US Army has moved the system into its production phase, with Palantir and Anduril sharing contracts worth $192 million. Palantir’s portion comes to $127 million, and the company leads overall production and software work while Anduril handles hardware and integration. Eight systems are slated for delivery over the coming 18 months.

That order extends a defense franchise that has become the backbone of the bull case. But the company is also pushing beyond government work. The expanded PwC alliance targets enterprise AI clients outside the traditional defense orbit, and the hiring of Peter Zaffino — until recently executive chair at AIG — as global head of financial services signals an intent to compete seriously for established finance-sector customers rather than remain a niche data analytics provider.

CEO Alex Karp’s personal investment in a new defense technology venture founded by Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s former digital transformation minister, sits formally outside Palantir. Yet it reinforces the extent to which Karp’s own standing in the defense world remains intertwined with the company’s narrative.

The Burry Critique

The bear case has found its most prominent voice in Burry, who argues Palantir is structurally closer to a consulting firm than a software company with scalable margins. His evidence: a deferred revenue ratio of roughly 32 percent, which he compares with Accenture’s approximately 31 percent. For Burry, that suggests revenues are more project-bound and less recurring than a market capitalization of around $440 billion would imply. He has suggested the market cap could fall below $100 billion.

The comparison lands uncomfortably because it targets the heart of Palantir’s premium valuation. If a meaningful share of revenue is project-based and labor-intensive, the software multiple the stock commands becomes harder to justify. Whether the raised guidance — up from $7.65–$7.66 billion to $8.15–$8.16 billion in annual revenue — undermines that thesis is a question the coming quarters will have to answer.

Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Palantir?

Political Friction Mounts

Operational progress is running alongside a thickening web of political complications. In Australia, supermarket chain Coles is ending its data analytics partnership with Palantir by 2027, following a campaign by the organization GetUp that gathered around 85,000 signatures. That loss is complete, not hypothetical — evidence that public pressure can sever real business relationships.

In the UK, lawmakers have raised security concerns about Palantir contracts following a report from the Swiss Army, while London Mayor Sadiq Khan has agreed to allow searches of his communications in the legal dispute over a blocked contract with the Metropolitan Police. Both matters remain unresolved, carrying reputational risk without a clear endpoint in sight.

Insider Activity and Capital Allocation Questions

The insider selling that has accompanied the stock’s run continues. Chief Accounting Officer Jeffrey Buckley sold 3,305 Class A shares in late August, worth approximately $577,132, partly under a Rule 10b5-1 plan. Such sales are legally unremarkable and often pre-planned, but they join a pattern of insider disposals in the hundreds of millions of dollars spread over several months.

Capital allocation raises its own questions. A previously announced share buyback program of over $1 billion has so far been executed to the tune of just $75 million, fueling doubts about how management prioritizes returning cash to shareholders.

What Would Settle the Debate

The technical picture offers little resolution. The relative strength index sits at 59.7 — elevated but not in overheated territory that would force a correction. The stock’s distance from its 52-week high suggests the market is hardly euphoric about new all-time highs, even as it searches for confirmation that the valuation can hold.

The bull case rests on momentum continuing to validate the raised guidance, with further government orders like TITAN reinforcing the defense pipeline. The bear case gains weight if future quarterly results fail to improve the deferred revenue structure — or if more customers follow Coles out the door. Burry’s thesis would then move from provocative to prescriptive, reopening a valuation debate that the recent run of contract wins has only temporarily quieted.

The next concrete test comes with the progress of the London police contract litigation and the operating metrics in the next quarterly report, which will show whether the raised forecast rests on durable foundations. For now, Palantir offers investors a study in contradiction: a company securing its largest production orders yet, while the questions about how much of its revenue is truly recurring — and whether that justifies the multiple — grow louder with each passing week.