Palantir generated a record $1.855 billion in revenue from the U.S. government in 2025, the company said in an earnings report that beat market expectations.
“We’ve also done so by critically supporting some of the most interesting, complex and unusual operations that the U.S. government has been involved in, many of which we can’t comment on, but which have been the highlight of the last year and have been very motivating for all of us at Palantir,” CEO Alex Karp said on the investor call.
Palantir’s “motivational” business with the U.S. government grew 55% year-over-year in 2025. In the last three months of the year alone, Palantir had $570 million in revenue, growing 66% year-over-year.
Most of that revenue comes from the company’s work for the Department of Defense, “as well as accelerating civilian agency momentum,” said Ryan Taylor, Palantir’s chief revenue officer.
Palantir’s close relationship with at least one of these civilian agencies has been at the heart of growing public opinion. scrutinyand that’s the Department of Homeland Security.
DHS relies on Palantir software to boost the Trump administration’s violent policies. repression against immigrants. Last year, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency paid Palantir $60 million to build a surveillance platform called ImmigrationOS to track self-deportations. A few months later, an Amnesty International report report claimed that Palantir’s AI software was being used to target non-citizens who speak out in favor of Palestine.
ICE also uses Palantir technology to decide which neighborhoods to target for deportation raids. The program is called ELITE (short for Enhanced Lead Identification and Targeting), and it was first revealed in a 404 Media report last month and later corroborated in an EDS report on AI use cases within the Department.
The same report also states that ICE uses Palantir AI to review, summarize and categorize tips sent to the agency.
Karp himself has been outspoken in support of Trump’s immigration policies, going so far as to say that he will use his “all his influence so that this country remains skeptical about migration.»
But Palantir’s partnership with Washington goes far beyond simple immigration. Many parts of the government rely on Palantir software, including the Pentagon and notably in a $480 million deal for a AI-powered target identification system called Maven.
“Our weapons software is present in all combat situations [that] I’m aware of that,” Karp said. In fact, the CEO says it’s been so effective that his CTO Shyam Sankar’“The phone rings all day, and what they want from it is, ‘How can I do the same thing in government?’ » »
Karp’s usual retort to accusations that Palantir is helping the administration immorally (and some argue that illegal), is that the company’s software is the only way the public can ensure that government actions remain constitutional. He used this reasoning by defending the use of Palantir software during boat strikes in the Caribbean, which many experts consider to be war crimesand he used it again during the investor call to allay fears of mass surveillance driven by Palantir.
Karp says Palantir is developing technology that will hold the government accountable to the legal limits of its surveillance and ensure that “every institution that uses our product does so in compliance with American law and ethics.”
But what happens when these “laws and ethics” themselves become questionable? Well, Palantir continues to get paid.
Take Palantir’s work for the Department of Health and Human Services. For about a year, Palantir has provided AI tools to attack government programs, contracts and grants that do not align with the Trump administration’s views on gender, environment and race, according to a recently released report on AI use cases at HHS.
The department uses Palantir AI to ensure all grants and employment comply with Trump’s executive orders targeting FROM THE And “gender ideology.»
Since their signing a year ago, the two executive orders have led to numerous federal layoffs, including some targeting not linked to DEI vacant positions and significant reductions in funding for crucial research. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention even had to rub any mention of words like “gender”, “LGBT” or “environmental justice” retract and even take a break some research submissions, while Trump cut more than 1,600 research grants to the National Science Foundation.
