On the morning of the earnings call, Alex Karp did what Alex Karp does. He turned a quarterly results read-out into something closer to a sermon. Palantir's US government revenue had grown 84% year-over-year to $687 million in a single quarter — an acceleration from 66% the quarter before — and Karp told investors, with the kind of certainty that makes CFOs flinch, that the business would double again.
He has the receipts to back the bravado. A $10 billion, ten-year US Army contract. A widening footprint across allied defense and intelligence agencies. AI tooling that Karp openly credits with giving the United States and its partners "an edge" in the escalating Iran conflict — a conflict that, by mid-May 2026, is reshaping oil markets, defense budgets, and the political calculus around dual-use software.
The stock has responded the way the stock always responds to Karp in full flight. Up. Loudly.
But for founders and operators trying to engineer growth in a flat economy — where most software companies are clawing for 15% net new ARR and pretending it's a strategy — Palantir is now the case study to study. And to question. Because beneath the 85% headline are three uncomfortable truths that determine whether this is the defining enterprise software story of the decade, or the most expensive geopolitical trade dressed up as a SaaS multiple.
