Alex Karp made the list.
The CEO and co-founder of Palantir Technologies (PLTR) was recently added to the Forbes 400, a list published by Forbes magazine of the wealthiest 400 American citizens ranked by net worth who own assets in the U.S.
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Forbes said that despite it requiring more money than ever to make the annual list, which Malcolm Forbes started in 1982, "23 billionaires were able to elbow their way into the ranks this year."
"Palantir’s meteoric rise has earned CEO Alex Karp a spot on The Forbes 400 list of richest Americans for the first time, worth an estimated $3.6 billion, thanks to his Palantir stake and $1 billion or so in cash from stock sales as of September 1, the day we finalized net worths for our list," Forbes said.
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The publication raised questions about the data analytics company’s valuation. It noted that only five of the 20 analysts who cover Palantir give the group a “buy” rating, with the remainder split between hold and sell ratings.
Forbes reporter Phoebe Liu said that Karp’s addition to the list and Palantir’s too-high valuation show that what he and his company stand for—Western values, American defense, and artificial intelligence—are especially relevant in today’s economic, cultural, and geopolitical landscape.
Analyst says he's 'more bullish' on Palantir
"It’s worth watching what happens with the ever-controversial, ever-secretive (despite being publicly traded!) firm in the coming months and years," Liu said.
Karp, who appeared on “Real Time with Bill Maher" last month, is reported to be an eccentric leader who wears brightly colored athletic wear, practices martial arts, keeps Tai chi swords, and can solve a Rubik's Cube in less than 3 minutes, according to an MSN profile.
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After the TV interview, TheStreet Pro analyst Ed Ponsi wondered if Karp was the next "rock star CEO" and noted that the executive "put on a brilliant performance, even as he struggled to coherently explain what it is his company actually does."
"No matter," Ponsi said. "This was Karp’s moment on the big stage. Like Jimi Hendrix at Monterey or Bob Dylan at Newport, Karp has just entered the general public’s consciousness."
The company received early backing from CIA investment arm In-Q-Tel and does contract work for government agencies such as the Department of Defense, the FBI, and the Danish National Police.
Palantir's sales are largely driven by its work helping the U.S. government with its counterterrorism efforts. The data analysis software provider has also expanded into managing, interpreting, and reporting data for large companies.
Karp and his company joined another list recently when Palantir, which went public in 2020, joined the S&P 500, replacing stalwart American Airlines (AAL) .
On Sept. 26, Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives raised the firm's price target on Palantir to $45 from $38 while keeping an outperform rating on the shares, according to The Fly.
Ives said that he is "more bullish" on Palantir going forward, noting that his recent channel checks indicated incrementally more enterprises are strategically discussing how they will deploy the company's Artificial Intelligence Platform during 2025.
The analyst said the increased price target reflects higher confidence in Palantir's enterprise-driven artificial intelligence strategy. He added that he views this as a clear "game changer" for the Palantir story as the use cases of AI start to take hold over the next 12 to 18 months.
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The company is "in a prime spot to continue expanding its pipeline/deal flow while providing more use cases coming forward to address critical problems across industries," Ives contended.
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Shares of Palantir are up 126% year to date, and the stock got a jolt recently when co-founder Peter Thiel, whom Karp met at Stanford Law School, reportedly sold 12.412 million Palantir shares at an average price of $36.85 per share from Sept. 27 through Oct. 1 under the 10b5-1 trading plan.
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The shares were sold through Rivendell 7 LLC, which now has roughly 34.26 million shares of Palantir remaining.
"These were all planned sales, and who could blame him after the run the stock has had?" TheStreet Pro’s Stephen Guilfoyle wrote on Oct.3. "Thiel has not apparently sold any of his voting shares. He, board member Stephen Cohen, and CEO Alex Karp still control the company."
Guilfoyle correctly predicted Palantir's stock rally, making it a top pick when it was trading below $10 per share and continuously recommending it during its rise. He correctly predicted that Palantir's stock price could eventually reach $36.
The veteran trader, who has been trading stocks since the 1980s when he worked on the New York Stock Exchange floor, noted that the company had entered the S&P 500 hand-in-hand with Dell Technologies (DELL) .
"Dell has tumbled 10.6% since its post-addition peak," Guilfoyle said. "We had implied that PLTR could suffer a similar post-addition fate, but so far, the stock has moved more sideways than lower."
Palantir and oil-and-gas producer APA Corp. (APA) , recently announced a multi-year, multi-million-dollar extension to their enterprise agreement originally signed in 2021.
The agreement builds on the work deployed across APA’s global portfolio over the past three years and introduces new artificial intelligence capabilities with Palantir’s Artificial Intelligence Platform software.
"We have not had a precise target since the $36 level had been taken and held," Guilfoyle said.
That's changed. Guilfoyle unveiled a new $48 price target on Palantir this week.
The company is expected to report third-quarter results in November, and analysts are looking for adjusted earnings of 9 cents per share on revenue of $703.7 million.
"If this is indeed the way the cookie crumbles, those numbers would be good for earnings growth of 29% on revenue growth of 26%," Guilfoyle said. "Of the 11 sell-side analysts I see that post sales estimates for Palantir, all 11 have increased their estimates since the start of the third quarter."
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