Palantir CEO Karp Fires Back at Short Sellers After Brutal Week for Stock

• Palantir Technologies (PLTR) shares fell over 11% this week despite exceeding earnings and revenue expectations, prompting CEO Alex Karp to publicly denounce short sellers like Michael Burry for alleged market manipulation amid the company’s robust financial performance.
• Despite the dip, PLTR stock has risen 135% in 2025 and 25-fold over three years, reaching a $417 billion market cap and trading at 220 times forward earnings – far exceeding Nvidia (NVDA) and Meta (META) multiples – while short interest remains low at just over 2%.
• Karp champions Palantir’s AI-driven analytics for government and enterprise clients as delivering “venture results for retail investors,” brushing off critics like Andrew Left and reaffirming the firm’s dominance despite ethical controversies over its contracts and his personal stances.

Palantir Technologies (PLTR) has long embodied the tension between groundbreaking innovation and Wall Street skepticism, a dynamic that sharpened into focus this week as its shares dropped more than 11% despite an earnings report that surpassed analyst expectations on both revenue and profit fronts. The company’s forecast, too, exceeded Wall Street projections, underscoring a business model rooted in advanced data analytics for governments and enterprises – a domain where Palantir has carved out a niche since its 2003 founding by CEO Alex Karp and partners, leveraging tools like its Gotham platform for intelligence analysis and Foundry for commercial data integration. Yet even as the stock closed Friday at $177.93 after a late recovery, the valuation debate rages on, with shares trading at approximately 220 times forward earnings, a premium that eclipses Tesla’s (TSLA) multiples and dwarfs those of Nvidia (NVDA) at 33 times and Meta Platforms (META) at 22 times.

Karp, ever the unapologetic steward of Palantir’s vision, has channeled this volatility into a direct confrontation with detractors, particularly short sellers like Michael Burry, the investor behind the famed 2008 housing market bet immortalized in “The Big Short.” In back-to-back CNBC appearances, Karp labeled such positions as “market manipulation,” zeroing in on Burry’s recent disclosures of shorts against Palantir and Nvidia. “The two companies he’s shorting are the ones making all the money, which is super weird,” Karp remarked on “Squawk Box,” dismissing the logic as “bats — crazy” in a nod to the ontological foundations powering Palantir’s AI-driven ontology systems. He escalated the rhetoric Friday with CNBC’s Sara Eisen, portraying Burry’s exit strategy as an attempt to “screw the whole economy by besmirching the best financials ever … that are helping the average person as investors [and] on the battlefield.” This isn’t mere bluster; Palantir’s platforms have powered critical operations from counterterrorism to supply chain optimization, and its recent commercial expansion – fueled by AI integrations – has diversified revenue streams beyond government contracts, which once dominated its profile.

The irony of the selloff is stark: Palantir’s shares have surged 135% in 2025 alone, multiplying 25-fold over the past three years to propel its market cap beyond $417 billion. Revenue and profit growth have accelerated, yet the multiples have outpaced fundamentals, inviting critics like Citron Research’s Andrew Left, who in August deemed the stock “detached from fundamentals and analysis” and pegged a fair value at $40 – a target that now seems quaint amid the rally. Short interest, which crested above 9% in September, has dwindled to just over 2%, the lowest since Palantir’s 2020 direct listing, signaling waning bearish conviction even as the post-earnings dip – 8% immediately after Monday’s report, followed by nearly 7% on Thursday – stirred fresh doubts. Karp frames this not as overvaluation but as democratized opportunity: “We’re delivering venture results for retail investors,” he told Eisen, emphasizing how Palantir’s ascent benefits everyday stakeholders alongside institutional players.

Karp’s combative style is no novelty; it echoes his May response to a prior post-earnings plunge, where he quipped, “You don’t have to buy our shares,” adding, “We’re happy … We’re going to partner with the world’s best people and we’re going to dominate. You can be along for the ride or you don’t have to be.” On the earnings call itself, he mused about the regrets of non-investors, urging them to “get some popcorn.” This bravado coexists with deeper frictions: Palantir’s collaborations with agencies like U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have drawn ethical scrutiny over surveillance implications, while Karp’s outspoken pro-Israel positions have prompted employee departures. Nonetheless, the company’s trajectory – bolstered by AI ontology advancements that enable seamless data fusion across disparate sources – positions it as a linchpin in an era of geopolitical and economic complexity, where predictive analytics can tip scales in defense, healthcare, and beyond.

In essence, Palantir’s saga reflects broader market currents: the premium commanded by AI enablers amid rapid adoption, juxtaposed against the perennial hunt for undervalued footholds. Burry’s bet, alongside voices like Left’s, underscores a contrarian impulse that has historically unraveled bubbles but also missed megatrends – from semiconductors to software ontologies. As Karp’s barbs suggest, Palantir isn’t just weathering the storm; it’s redefining the battlefield, inviting believers to join while daring skeptics to reconsider their wagers.

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