Palantir CEO Alex Karp used a July 1 appearance on CNBC’s Squawk Box to criticize the closed-model AI economy. He told viewers that when it comes to OpenAI and Anthropic, all is not well inside the AI boom. “I’m not throwing shade at them, but something has gone completely wrong.” Shares of Palantir (NASDAQ:PLTR | PLTR Price Prediction) rose 8% that day as Karp reframed the AI debate around token economics and data ownership.
The Quote That Moved the Stock
Karp’s argument was that businesses are exhausted by paying for tokens. As he put it: “The basic view among enterprises in this country is I’m going to chillax and waste my time with tokens.” According to CNBC’s Samantha Subin, Karp took aim at the token model used by OpenAI and Anthropic as AI costs skyrocket. He further argued customers are shifting away from “tokenmaxxing” toward ROI and open-weight models that deliver similar work at a fraction of the cost.
Ahead of the interview, Palantir posted a 9-point “AI sovereignty” manifesto on X. Earlier that week, the company expanded its partnership with Nvidia (Nasdaq: NVDA) to build custom models for U.S. government agencies. Karp’s framing of that alliance was revealing: “What aligns me with Nvidia, and I think is what the technical customers want, which is control over their compute, their models, their data stack and their alpha. They want to know they own the means of production. It’s not being transferred to someone else.”
The Numbers Backing the Swagger
Karp speaks from strength. Palantir’s Q1 FY2026 report showed record revenue of $1.63 billion, up 84.7% year over year, the highest growth rate in company history. U.S. commercial revenue jumped 133% to $595 million, and adjusted operating margin expanded to 60% from 44%. Karp put it this way on the call: “Palantir’s Rule of 40 score has soared to 145%. We have shattered the metric, a feat matched only by other fellow AI infrastructure companies: NVIDIA, Micron and SK hynix.” Management raised annual revenue guidance to 71% growth, 10 points ahead of the prior quarter’s forecast. Shares of NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA), Karp’s partner in the sovereignty pitch, are up 13.1% year to date.
Token-cost fatigue is showing across businesses: Uber (NYSE:UBER) has reportedly capped employee spending at $1,500 per month for each agentic coding tool, including Claude Code and Cursor, after blowing through its AI budget in four months. For readers tracking the picks-and-shovels layer of this shift, our team’s AI infrastructure research maps the suppliers benefiting most.
The Disconnect and the Bear Case
Palantir shares closed at $126.79 on July 10. The stock is down 28.67% year to date, even as operations accelerate. The stock trades at a forward P/E near 91, and Michael Burry’s Scion Asset Management disclosed a new put position tied to 5,000,000 Palantir shares in its Q3 2025 13F filed November 3, 2025, an underlying notional of about $912 million. 13Fs don’t disclose strikes, expirations, or whether the position is still open.
What to watch: whether the “own the means of production” pitch keeps pulling U.S. commercial customers. Palantir’s U.S. commercial remaining deal value (RDV), a measure of contracted business still left to recognize, reached $4.92 billion in the latest quarter, up 112% from a year earlier.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Top Gaining Stocks
Top Losing Stocks