Palantir’s CEO Just Sent Wall Street a Message It Won’t Soon Forget

Palantir Technologies (NASDAQ:PLTR | PLTR Price Prediction) CEO Alex Karp ended the company’s third-quarter earnings call on November 2, 2026 by speaking directly to the stock’s skeptics. He was thanking early backers who invested their own money, people who “would otherwise be called retail”, when he said: “And part of the delivery here, part of what motivates me is helping to make sure we are fighting for you and, quite frankly, making sure that the people that made fun of you and made fun of us are suffering. And I’m very proud of that, and I’m very proud to have all of you along with us, and thank you for that support.”

Just before that, Karp said those shareholders had “defended us against what obviously now look like ridiculously stupid and malicious, incredibly hard-to-understand attacks,” which he called “something that we will never forget.”

Results That Back Up Karp’s Swagger

Revenue came in at $2.313 billion, up 96% year over year. That is the fastest growth Palantir has delivered as a public company. Growth has picked up every quarter this year, from 84.71% in Q1 to 92.83% in Q2. GAAP net income was $1.128 billion, and the adjusted operating margin expanded to 62% from 51% a year ago.

The biggest change was in the business mix. U.S. commercial revenue grew 148% to $984 million, which exceeded U.S. government revenue of $953 million for the first time in the company’s history. Karp put it this way: “A business that was viewed as a nice-to-have part of our business as late as three years ago is now the dominant part of our business.” He also said new deals are starting much bigger: “Instead of being like $250K, it’s like $25 million to start.” Net dollar retention came in at 165%.

Management raised its full-year revenue guidance to between $8.530 billion and $8.534 billion, which works out to about 91% growth. That forecast was at 61% when the year began.

Can the Growth Support the Stock Price?

Investors still sold the stock. Shares traded at $173.11 on Tuesday, down 2.94% for the session and 12.94% over the past week. Analysts pointed to slowing total contract value (TCV), the dollar value of new contracts signed in the quarter (per CNBC). TCV grew just 6% to $2.918 billion.

At a market cap of about $396.5 billion, Palantir trades at 86x forward earnings and 159x trailing earnings. A multiple like that only holds up if growth keeps speeding up. If revenue growth stalls in the 90% range while bookings stay flat, the multiple is likely to shrink, even as the business keeps putting up record numbers.

Signals to Track Before the Next Earnings Report

• Q4 delivery: Guidance calls for revenue of $2.649 billion to $2.653 billion.
• Bookings: TCV needs to pick back up to support Karp’s claim that “the market for us is insatiable.”
• Dilution and collections: Stock-based compensation rose to $318.9 million from $172.3 million a year ago. Accounts receivable climbed to $1.883 billion from $1.042 billion at the end of 2025.

Karp has given his critics a clear challenge. Over the next few quarters, the bookings numbers will show whether he can back it up.

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