Palantir, the controversial US surveillance and analytics firm, says it welcomes scrutiny of government spending by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the controversial cost-cutting agency led by Elon Musk.
Speaking to investors this week, Shyam Sankar, Palantir chief technology officer, said that DOGE was the “right thing for the country.” DOGE was established by an executive order in January and charged with cutting government spending to help reduce public debt, which reached a record high of $36.2 trillion in January 2025.
While USAID, the Department of Education, and the Department of Veterans Affairs have become early targets, there remains some skepticism over whether DOGE is saving money amid a downward trend in estimates.
IBM and Accenture are among the tech companies concerned over DOGE-inspired cuts to contracts, but not Palantir. After announcing Q1 revenue of $884 million, up 39 percent on the same period last year, Sankar answered analyst questions about DOGE.
“We have way too much spend on things that do not work,” he said. “The government has started to resemble a finely marbled wagyu [fatty beef]. The fake projects that do not deliver and will never deliver crowd out and suffocate the things that could actually be excellent… and so we welcome DOGE. These guys are heroes. They are world-class technologists that could be choosing to do anything, and instead, they are choosing to do this.”
Outspoken CEO Alex Karp pitched in with his own take, saying investors were often concerned about public sector software spending when budgets came under pressure. “We like pressure on the system. We need pressure on the system. Because that pentesting forces you to ask questions like, ‘Does the software work? How does it work? How does it manage ethical concerns? How does it manage data protection? How does it manage output?’
“One of the myths is that if you don’t have pressure on the system, you just spend money, you somehow get a better system. But actually, you get neither. They put up with us. And once they see those results, they stick with us.”
Peter Thiel, who co-founded Palantir along with Karp and others, is also known for helping to fund the political fortunes of US vice president JD Vance, perhaps making Karp’s backing of President Donald Trump’s DOGE initiative less surprising.
On the investor call, Karp also took the opportunity to take a swipe at Europe. Previously, Karp had said the continent should be thankful to Palantir for preventing goose-stepping from returning to its streets.
This week, Palantir blamed “continued headwinds” on a decline in international commercial revenue. “Europe doesn’t get AI yet. At some point in the future, it will,” Karp said.
Whether he was referring to the EU’s decision to create the world’s first legislation specifically designed to mitigate the risks of AI is unclear. So too is whether Karp is prepared to explore the possibility that Europe doesn’t get Palantir. ®
