Palantir sees first billion dollars in quarterly sales amid US spending cuts

Shares of Palantir Technologies appear to be heading towards another record high on Tuesday after the company booked its first billion dollars (£0.75 billion) in quarterly sales and raised its outlook for the year.

The stock rose above 170 dollars (£127) before the opening bell on Tuesday, which would be a high for the company that has already notched record highs four times this year, the most recent on July 25 when its stock closed at 158.80 dollars (£119.53).

Since going public in 2020 when it posted a 1.17 billion-dollar (£0.88 billion) annual loss, the artificial intelligence software company has swung to a profit. Profit rose 33% to 327 million dollars (£246 million) in the second quarter.

Its one billion dollars quarterly revenue haul was fuelled by a 53% spike in government sales, despite massive spending cuts under President Donald Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), once led by the world’s richest man Elon Musk.

“Doge has had zero negative impact on Palantir’s US government business, which achieved its fastest growth rate since the second quarter of 2021,” wrote William Blair analysts Louie DiPalma and Bryce Sandberg. “Palantir is clearly benefiting from AI industry momentum across its government and commercial customer bases.”

The company also recorded a 93% jump in business sales. Overall US revenue surged 68% to 733 million dollars (£551.7 million).

Late Monday, Palantir raised its revenue expectations for 2025 to between 4.14 billion dollars and 4.15 billion dollars (£3.12 billion). It also raised its US commercial revenue guidance to more than 1.3 billion dollars (£0.98 billion), which would mean that Palantir achieved a growth rate of at least 85%.

“This was a phenomenal quarter,” chief executive Alex Karp said in a statement accompanying the earnings release. “We continue to see the astonishing impact of AI leverage.”

Mr Karp believes AI will benefit everyone, saying during a call with industry analysts on Monday that Palantir is “bullish on all aspects of American life, including and especially people in the blue collar”.

He said Palantir wants to “arm the working class or blue collar workers with AI agency enhancing skills”, and said that the company will work with labour leaders to help familiarise workers with the technology.

“People with less than a college education are creating a lot value and sometimes more value than people with a college education using our product,” Mr Karp said.

Palantir, headquartered in Denver, specialises in software platforms that pull together and analyse large amounts of data.