Since the NYSE debuted five years ago, Palantir has grown by 1,700%. How did you get there?

when Palantir It hit the stock market in September 2020, but there were many possibilities for problems. The Covid pandemic has taken the world by storm, society is locked down and markets are volatile.

Meanwhile, Palantir was at a loss as he dealt with continued criticism of government work, particularly U.S. customs and immigration. And the company has published a direct list rather than a traditional IPO.

At an operating price of $10 per share, Palantir was valued at $16.5 billion, down from its private market peak in 2015.

“It was the beginning of the pandemic. No one knew what was going on,” CFO David Glaser said in an interview. “The stock market wasn’t ripping and no one was about to go public, so we decided to make it public as soon as possible.”

Just five years later, Palantir reached a height that was difficult for even the largest bull.

The stock price surged more than 1,700%, closing at $182.42 on Tuesday, with a market capitalization of over $432 billion. It places it among the 20 most valuable US companies, and on something like tech stubborn Cisco and IBM. Last year, Palantir took part in the S&P 500 and was replaced American Airlines.

Analysts surveyed by LSEG show that quarterly revenues are expected to exceed $1 billion for the first time in the last quarter, reaching $4.2 billion this year. It has risen almost six times since 2019. Meanwhile, Palantir has added 1,500 full-time employees.

CEO Alex Karp, who founded the company in 2003 with prominent investors like Peter Thiel and Joe Lonsdale, showed optimism on the first day of Palantia’s life in the open market.

“We have reached a very important base for us,” Carp holds a PhD with Stanford University in Neoclassical Social Theory from Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany. “Being in public helps our clients and helps us grow.”

The eye-opening rise since then has baffled Wall Street, unfamiliar with multiples of these types, especially for businesses of this size.

Palantir will trade 226x revenue over the next 12 months, trading at multiples over 80. Teslatrading 194 times the advance revenue and 14 times the revenue from next year.

In a report last month, Citron Studies’ Andrew Left left the well-known shortseller, a well-known shortseller called “separated from Fandals and analysis.” Compared to Openai’s recent $500 billion valuation, he said Palantir would be $40, or less than a quarter of its current price if it valued the same revenue as an artificial intelligence startup.

“The Carp and his team should be proud, but for investors, that’s where discipline begins,” writes the left. “Comparison is the enemy of happiness, and when measured against a true AI leader, Palantir’s price already reflects success beyond its basics.”

Carp, who remains unreleased from the conflict, recently told detractors to “end” if they “do not like the price.”

“We’re going to be the most important software company in the world. People will understand what it values ​​over the long term,” Carp said on the day the company debuted in NYSE.

Palantir refused to make Karp available for interviews.

It’s not the only cause of controversy. Critics also raised concerns about how Palantir tools are being used, such as ICE and other government agencies.

Palantir was established in response to national security threats in 9/11. The company has developed a wealth of software that will help clients customize their datasets to compile and analyze large datasets. Palantir says on its website it has been partnering with the US Army since 2008. “We’re embedding it with our users and designing and deploying Modern Mission Essential Software Solutions.”

Federal documents from April show that ICE paid Palantir $30 million to provide people with “real-time visibility” to self-promotion. Earlier this year, the New York Times reported that Palantiers were helping the Trump administration collect data on Americans.

In a blog post, Palantir called him reporting “reckless and irresponsible.” Karp said in a June interview with CNBC that Palantir “is not monitoring Americans.”

The company is also facing backlash by providing technology to Ukrainian and Israeli forces.

Karp told CNBC in March 2024 that he hopes employees will step down from the company for public support in Israel and will further retire. Palantir put up a full-page ad in the New York Times following the fatal October 7 attack.

“From my perspective, it’s not just Israel,” Carp said in an interview with CNBC. “It was, “Do you believe in the West? Do you think the West has created an excellent lifestyle?”

Over the past five years, Palantir has scooped up large government deals with contractors RTX Partnered with the giants of aerospace l3harris and Boeing. Over the summer, the company landed up to $10 billion worth of software and data contracts with the Army.

Karp has long been a non-apology advocate for Palantir’s business pursuit.

Originally headquartered in Palo Alto, California, Carp moved its company to Denver in 2020, increasingly unhappy with what it considered Silicon Valley monoculture.

In a letter to investors ahead of the direct list, Karp said Silicon Valley’s “engineering elite” doesn’t know “what we need to organize society and what justice is” and that the company shares “increasingly fewer in the values ​​and commitments of the technology sector.”

Palantir has been a standout performer in the market for the past five years, but long-term investors have had to get through dark days along the way.

By the end of 2020, Palantir shares jumped to $23.55, earning almost 136%. In a letter from Karp before the direct list, he argued during the crisis that “effective software may be essential for the survival of an organization.”

Skepticism began construction in the second half of 2021. Earlier the following year, rising interest rates and rising inflation forced investors from risky securities to safe assets like bonds. Palantir shares lost two-thirds of their value in 2022 and closed the year at $6.42, well below the direct list price.

However, that November brought about a new era of AI that introduced ChatGpt and revived and redefined the high-tech industry.

Palantir launched an AI platform called AIP in April 2023. Designed to help securely integrate large-scale language models when working with sensitive data, Palantir’s technology is now faster and more efficient to attract and analyze information.

The company believes that much of its commercial expansion has expanded to AIP. While government operations still account for a large portion of its revenue, Palantir attracts corporate clients such as Wendy’s and American Airlines.

In its latest revenue call in August, Glazer said the total contract value for bookings for the quarter increased by 185% to $1.1 billion, while U.S. commercial revenue increased 93% from the previous year.

“AIP continues to drive the expansion of existing customers and conversions of new customers in the US,” says Glazer.

One of the customers cited by the company was in a partnership with car supplier Leah for the last five years. Palantir said Lear is supported by using AIP to “proactively manage tariff exposure, automate multiple management workflows, and dynamically balance production lines.”

Palantir shares rose 341% last year, and have risen another 141% so far in 2025.

AI is also used in a lot by the government.

In 2024, Palantir signed an agreement to create an AI-powered mobile ground station that can use space sensors to collect data for soldiers. In May this year, the Pentagon raised its total cap to $1.3 billion due to its Maven Smart Systems contract for AI capabilities.

Akash Jain, Palantir’s technology chief and chairman of the US government business, said in an interview that AI has created a whole new risk, forcing the government to rethink how commercial technology is used.

“We are fully positioned for growth,” he said.

Watch: Palantia’s Cramer