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Palantir (NASDAQ:PLTR) is riding a wave of government contracts as the Trump administration ramps up efforts to centralize and analyze federal data. Since Trump signed an executive order in March calling for more interagency data sharing, Palantir has quietly become the go-to vendor for building that digital infrastructure. The company has landed more than $113 million in new and extended federal contracts since Trump took officeincluding a blockbuster $795 million deal with the Pentagon last week. Palantir's Foundry platform is already in use at Homeland Security and Health and Human Services, and engineers were recently embedded at the IRS to begin building a unified, searchable database for taxpayer records. Talks are also underway with the Social Security Administration and Department of Education, suggesting more agencies could follow.
Investor enthusiasm hasn't lagged. Since Trump's re-election, Palantir shares have surged more than 140%, fueled by the prospect that the company may now become the digital backbone of the U.S. federal government. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)a Musk-led initiativehas been instrumental in Palantir's rise, with several DOGE members having ties to Palantir or Peter Thiel-backed ventures. The company's tools are now being used to connect data points ranging from immigration status and bank accounts to student loans and disability claims. In April, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) awarded Palantir a $30 million contract to track migrant movements in real timeanother sign of how fast the government is scaling its use of Foundry.
Still, not everyone's cheering. Inside Palantir, dissent is brewing. Thirteen former employees recently signed an open letter opposing the company's deepening role under Trump, citing risks of surveillance overreach and reputational blowback. This is a red line I won't redraw, said Brianna Katherine Martin, a departing strategist. Engineers have raised concerns about the aggregation of sensitive data and sloppy security practices from some government users. Palantir insists it acts purely as a data processor under client direction, but the scale and sensitivity of the work has sparked internal debates about how far is too far. Investors, for now, seem focused on the upsidebut the longer-term consequences could be harder to quantify.
This article first appeared on GuruFocus.