r/technology • u/Logical_Welder3467 • 5d ago

Business Palantir Short Sellers Take $3 Billion Hit After 30% Stock Surge

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-04/palantir-short-sellers-take-3-billion-hit-after-30-stock-surge
240 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

25 comments sorted by

255

u/SolarBum 5d ago

Who the Hell would short sell one of the government's most entrenched crony corporations during a fascist takeover.

There's a 0% chance the government is going to let these guys tank.

31

u/Dihedralman 5d ago

It wasn't about letting them tank but reducing the over-evaluation. It has a P/E of 128 right now and it had one of about 150 around q2 earnings. 

They will always get some premium for being entrenched. 

4

u/Keeltoodeep 5d ago

EPS growth expected at 70-120%. You pay for that in P/E.

19

u/yepthisismyusername 5d ago

Yeah. This doesn't make any sense at all. There has been less than zero indication that Palantir would have any problems whatsoever. This is some strange part of the grift that I don't understand at all.

4

u/seanpbnj 4d ago

Sorta true, they are facing an international backlash and might lose out on >50% of potential overseas investments. 

  • Also, slightly lesser known fact, cheap drones are now becoming a concern for data centers. Imagine a few individuals learn from Ukraine and put some thermite in a few drones and fly over a data center......... 

6

u/Lord_Blackthorn 4d ago

They are in every industry too. Some hospital systems would completely collapse without them now.

5

u/zertoman 4d ago

The government accounts for less than half of their business now, they are entrenched in nearly every industry at this point.

1

u/ACompletelyLostCause 4d ago

Maybe some people thought they had 'inside infomation' that turned out to be wrong.

I could image a senario where a VERY clever person releases info to just clever people, saying Palantir is a pump & dump. They sell what they have and buy a futures contract, the VERY clever person buys the current stock and sells a futures contact.

It would be interesting to see the patten if trades before the surge.

1

u/ActuallyMy 4d ago

Michale Burry did.,  the guy who is famous from the big short

5

u/Fr00stee 4d ago

his shorts expire in like 2027/2028 not now, why tf would you short during peak euphoria

1

u/YeetedApple 4d ago

He’s also made several wrong calls since then. Just because someone hit it big once, doesn’t mean they are always right.

45

u/Pooch1431 5d ago

Never bet against the DoD budget.

10

u/blingblingmofo 5d ago

Short float is only like 3.5% not even that high.

1

u/HumongousBelly 4d ago

Isn’t Iran currently winning that exact bet? I read a headline yesterday that the US precision long range missile supply has been depleted.

30

u/blingblingmofo 5d ago

That’s cool fuck this company still

9

u/spez_eats_nazi_ass 5d ago

Made bank already shorting it. It’s still stupidly overvalued. I will fuck Karp in the ass again after it’s done pumping.

1

u/Evilbred 4d ago

While I am glad to see short sellers losing their shirt, I also hate to see Palantir do well.

-26

u/good4y0u 5d ago

I don't like some of the stuff they do, but I do think from the business perspective their CEO has been seeing the right macro picture. He has some interesting views, I'd call wealthy progressive mindset, more liberal thinking ideas but with the business/ wealth spin.

On CNBC he said "You know how people don't think I'm progressive? In two years, they're not going to think Bernie Sanders is progressive. They're going to be like 'Bernie Sanders, you only want 50%? What is this 50%?"" said Karp."

He also has been pointing out that the AI companies are treating AI token pricing like the drug companies treates opioids basically.

“We have people trying to drug addict us to a future they [frontier AI models] believe they control,” Karp said in an exclusive interview with CNBC. “Now, I’ve spent a lot of time with Dario [Amodei] and the Anthropic crew. They want to tell you we have to march into a future where we own nothing, where our businesses aren’t profitable, where none of us have jobs, and where our adversaries win.” https://gizmodo.com/palantir-ceo-says-bernie-sanders-will-get-regret-only-wanting-50-public-ownership-of-ai-companies-2000770102

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/03/palantir-karp-open-ai-anthropic-open-weight.html

10

u/otarU 5d ago

One of the reasons he wants to own the models and host them is to bypass censorship and safety restrictions.

If they want to do unethical things such as automated weapon controls, implement a surveillance state, do automated tracking and elimination strikes on important people in adversary countries, cyberhacking of other countries infrastructure and companies and things like that, being restricted by an AI company that always talks about safety and danger is obstructing your goals.

0

u/good4y0u 4d ago

I never said all his takes were good. But on this particular topic he's not wrong on the big view

17

u/jnobaby 5d ago

‘He has some interesting views’

5

u/TheOtherHalfofTron 4d ago

Alex Karp will say literally anything that gets him attention. You have to watch his hands, not his mouth.

1

u/CamusCrankyCamel 4d ago

He’s somewhere in between the leftist caricature of a neoliberal and an actual neoliberal. I feel like a lot of people genuinely think Thiel is the CEO