Donald Trump talks up Palantir days after latest short seller attack

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Shares in Palantir rose on Friday after Donald Trump hailed its “great war fighting capabilities and equipment”, days after famed short seller Michael Burry knocked the stock by saying it would lose out to AI start-ups.

The data intelligence group’s stock rallied as much as 4 per cent after the US president’s post, which included Palantir’s Nasdaq ticker. Its share price remained down on the day following a bruising week of trading.

Burry — made famous by the film The Big Short for his bet against the US housing market ahead of the 2008 financial crisis — this week claimed AI start-up Anthropic was “eating Palantir’s lunch”, in a post he has since deleted. He had already disclosed a large bet against Palantir’s stock.

Palantir had already lost almost a quarter of its value since the start of the year. Burry’s post added to the concerns of analysts and investors about its high valuation, and that it would lose some of its market share to the $380bn start-up, which is rapidly growing its business selling AI tools to companies.

Trump lent his support to Palantir on Friday, posting: “Palantir Technologies (PLTR) has proven to have great war fighting capabilities and equipment. Just ask our enemies!!! President DJT.”

In a blog post shortly afterwards, Burry doubled down on his bearish view, saying he would not close his bet against Palantir.

Palantir, which works closely with several US government agencies, has become crucial to American military operations.

Over the past two years, the Pentagon has extensively integrated Palantir’s Maven Smart System, which helped provide a real-time data analysis dashboard for operations in Iran. Palantir and Anthropic have a partnership related to classified military work.

The company, which has won contracts under Democratic and Republican administrations, has prospered in Trump’s second term. It has signed several new multibillion-dollar agreements, including with the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is carrying out the administration’s controversial immigration crackdown.

Several Palantir alumni have taken positions in government, while the company has hired Washington lobbyists close to the White House.

Palantir is also among the corporate donors who pledged money to Trump’s White House ballroom project, alongside Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft.

Chief executive Alex Karp, who previously backed Democrats, donated $1mn to Trump’s Maga Inc Super Pac in 2024. He has since dined with the president at the White House and accompanied him on a trip to Saudi Arabia.

Karp has also strongly defended Palantir’s work for US government agencies, arguing it has helped America defend its borders.

He told investors in February that Palantir had supported “some of the most interesting, intricate, unusual operations that the US government has been involved in, many of which we can’t comment on”.