Defense contractor Palantir says ‘massive cultural shift in the U.S.’ has justified 20 years of thankless toil. ‘We were the freak show … and we spent 20 years for this moment’

• Palantir CEO Alex Karp is feeling vindicated as corporate America warms up to his company’s flagship AI offering and revenues from its bread-and-butter government work continue to increase in the DOGE era. Karp is known for his brazen and philosophical commentary, but it doesn’t appear to have gotten in the way of results. 

Palantir’s commitment to serving U.S. military and intelligence agencies long made it an outlier in Silicon Valley. For years, CEO Alex Karp recalled on the company’s first-quarter earnings call Monday, potential private-sector clients shied away from doing business with the upstart defense contractor and its quixotic chief executive.

But now, as chief technology officer Shyam Sankar noted on the call, companies like AIG, Citi, BP, Hertz and fellow defense firm L3Harris are touting its gains from using Palantir’s flagship Artificial Intelligence Platform, or AIP, to investors. Meanwhile, when it comes to the company’s bread and butter, management—along with plenty of investors and Wall Street analysts—believes Palantir is perfectly suited to capitalize on efforts to cut federal spending and streamline government contracting.

“We were the freak show,” Karp said. “And we spent 20 years for this moment.”

It’s not hard to see why he feels vindicated. The company’s U.S. revenue in Q1 grew 55% year-over-year and 13% from last quarter to $628 million. Even after Palantir’s highly priced shares fell sharply after the earnings call, the stock is still up roughly 330% in the past year.

Karp, who co-founded the company with Peter Thiel, Stephen Cohen, and Joe Lonsdale in 2004, has become famous for his brazen and philosophical commentary. His quarterly letter to shareholders quoted Saint Augustine, the Gospel of Matthew, and a speech from Richard Nixon to staff on the day of his resignation in 1974.

His unorthodox style, however, doesn’t appear to be getting in the way of results. On Monday, Palantir raised its forward guidance, projecting revenue to grow 36% to between $3.89 billion and $3.902 billion in 2025.

High expectations, however, are already baked into the stock price. Palantir shares currently trade at roughly 200 times its projected earnings over the next 12 months, according to estimates from S&P Capital IQ, compared to a forward P/E ratio of just over 20 for the S&P 500. That helps explain why the stock was down about 13% as of midday Tuesday, but shares are still up over 40% this year compared to the S&P’s 4% decline.

Poised for the era of AI and DOGE

Mariana Pérez Mora, a VP of equity research in aerospace and defense at Bank of America, has called Palantir a “overnight AI success 20 years in the making.” Karp echoed a similar message on Monday, citing a “massive cultural shift in the U.S.” amid corporate America’s embrace of the company’s offerings. U.S. commercial revenue hit $255 million, soaring 71% compared to the same quarter last year and up 19% from the final quarter of 2024. 

“When you use our software, when you use AIP, you will get demonstrably more value than what you’re paying for,” Karp said, “and you will share some of that value with us. And then I would say also, culturally, we just don’t see the resistance to the way we roll that we did in the past.”

And while the Elon Musk-led “Department of Government Efficiency” and related cost-cutting efforts have cast plenty of uncertainty around government contracts, Palantir’s revenue in the segment grew 45% year-over-year and 9% from last quarter to $373 million.

Sankar, the chief technology officer, touted the delivery of the first TITAN vehicles, for which Palantir was the primary contractor, to the U.S. Army in Q1. Karp also cited the increasing international adoption of Maven, the company’s signature AI offering for military and defense agencies.

“All part of our core mission to provide an unfair advantage to the noble warriors of the West,” he said.

Karp and Sankar also had plenty of praise for DOGE, with the latter saying the government’s fat had come to resemble a “finally marbled Wagyu.” Palantir and other defense-tech startups have long argued for an overhaul of the Pentagon’s procurement process, claiming it favors entrenched contractors with inferior products.

Karp said an increased focus on efficiency in Washington will be a tailwind to Palantir.

“We need pressure on the system,” he said. “We need people to have to change. We need people to have to transform. This is why they put up with us. And once they see those results, they stick with us.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com