How did Palantir's work for government agencies differ from its work for private campaigns during 2020 and 2024?
Executive summary
Palantir’s government work in 2020–2024 centered on heavy, mission-critical contracts—Gotham/Foundry deployments that integrated law‑enforcement, defense and intelligence data and supplied more than half of its 2024 revenue (55% of $2.9B) [1] [2]. Its private‑sector/commercial push grew rapidly (commercial revenue $1.3B in FY2024), but commercial work used Foundry differently—optimizing supply chains, fraud detection and business analytics rather than surveillance and enforcement [2] [3].
1. Government contracts: embedded, operational and high‑stakes
From 2020 through 2024 Palantir’s government engagements were characterized by deep, operational integration: agencies used Gotham and Foundry to connect disparate government records, build investigative profiles and visualize sensitive operations—work the company pitched as modernizing legacy IT while critics warned it created dependency and surveillance risks [3] [4]. Company filings and reporting show government contracts remained a majority of revenue in 2024 (55%), reflecting large, multi‑year deals and continuing demand from defense, intelligence and law‑enforcement customers [1] [2].
2. Private sector: commercial growth, different use cases
Commercial customers relied on Palantir’s Foundry for business intelligence tasks—supply‑chain optimization, fraud detection and AI development—areas that drove rapid commercial growth (commercial revenue $1.3B in FY2024 and fast expansion since 2021) [2] [5]. Reporting portrays commercial engagements as less about surveillance and more about operational analytics and efficiency, even as Palantir emphasized cross‑sector technology parity [3] [2].
3. Technical platforms, same codebase—different aims and sensitivities
Palantir ships two flagship platforms—Gotham (government-focused) and Foundry (commercial-facing)—but journalism and analysis stress overlap in capabilities: both connect and analyze large, disparate datasets; Gotham’s use in law‑enforcement and immigration enforcement raised distinct civil‑liberties alarms because of the political stakes of public‑sector action [3] [4]. The technical similarity means software that helps a corporation optimize logistics can, when repurposed for ICE or police, be used to locate individuals—creating different ethical and oversight implications [3] [4].
4. Scale and revenue: why government work mattered financially
Palantir’s FY2024 results and company 10‑K make plain that government business remained financially central: 55% of $2.9 billion came from government clients, and reporting documents major federal deals that fueled revenue and stock performance—while the commercial segment expanded quickly, it did not yet eclipse government in dollars during that period [1] [2] [6].
5. Politics, procurement and perception: closer ties to administrations
Multiple outlets documented Palantir’s growing prominence inside successive administrations and the political optics that followed—reporting on accelerated use under the Trump administration and prominent executive praise—feeding arguments that Palantir had become an “essential” private‑sector partner for some agencies [7] [8]. Critics and advocacy groups countered that such closeness reduced transparency and accountability in how public powers are exercised with private tools [4] [9].
6. Critics’ view: governance, ethics and surveillance risk
Advocates for oversight argued that Palantir’s government deployments turn large data aggregation into actionable intelligence and can enable profiling, deportation or other coercive state actions—concerns repeatedly raised in pieces on Gotham’s law‑enforcement uses and on the need for congressional transparency and limits [3] [4] [9]. These sources frame government work as higher‑stakes and more politically sensitive than commercial use.
7. Company framing and defense: modernization and cross‑sector legitimacy
Palantir and its spokespeople framed government work as delivering needed modernization and reliability across administrations, emphasizing multi‑party clientele and the company’s role in national security. They also highlighted rapid private‑sector uptake and commercial growth to counter singular focus on government ties [8] [10] [2].
Limitations and what reporting does not say
Available sources document platform differences, revenue splits and public debate, but they do not provide a full, itemized list of specific 2020 vs. 2024 contracts by client or granular technical changes between government and commercial deployments—those contract details and internal code distinctions are not itemized in the materials provided (not found in current reporting).