President Donald Trump’s administration has dramatically expanded its work with Palantir, elevating the company cofounded by Trump ally Peter Thiel as the government’s go-to software developer. Following massive contract terminations for consulting giants and government contractors like Accenture, Booz Allen, and Deloitte, Palantir has emerged ahead. Now the data analytics firm is partnering with those companies—offering them a lifeline while consolidating its own power.
Palantir has become one of the few winners in the Trump administration’s cost-cutting efforts, receiving more than $113 million in federal spending since the beginning of the year, according to The New York Times. Palantir’s US government revenue has grown by more than $ 370 million compared to this time last year, according to the company’s most recent quarterly earnings report. Before making remarks at last week’s AI Summit in DC, Trump thanked a variety of cabinet secretaries and tech leaders, including Palantir chief technology officer Shyam Sankar. “We buy a lot of things from Palantir,” Trump said. “Are we paying our bills? I think so.”
Instead of replacing these more traditional contractors, Palantir’s software is becoming the core tool deployed by them in government systems, placing Palantir in a newly central role.
The White House itself is thrilled by this partnership: “The Trump Administration has high-standard [sic] when spending American’s hard-earned tax dollars—which is why agencies have partnered with Palantir, a top-tier American company renowned for their longstanding history of innovation, results, and increasing government efficiency,” says White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers.
Palantir did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In April, WIRED reported that Palantir was working alongside IRS engineers to build what sources called a “mega API,” which would unify all data across the agency. An API, or application programming interface, enables applications and databases to exchange data and possibly compare it against other interoperable datasets. Once completed, this mega API could become the “read center of all IRS systems.” Immigration and Customs Enforcement contracted Palantir for $30 million to track self-deportations in April. The company has also won federal contracts more recently, like a $795 million award from the Pentagon in May to expand its Maven Smart System program. The total contract ceiling for the Army’s Maven program is now $1.3 billion.
This growth comes as some of the companies Palantir has chosen to partner with have lost billions in government contract cuts. In April, defense secretary Pete Hegseth announced plans to cut $5.1 billion in IT consulting contracts with companies including Accenture, Booz Allen, and Deloitte. In a memo announcing the cuts, Hegseth said that the Pentagon would be forced to bring more of its IT work in-house.
“These contracts represent non-essential spending on third party consultants to perform services more efficiently performed by the highly skilled members of our DoD workforce using existing resources,” Hegseth wrote.
Palantir’s partnerships with these companies vary, but each one makes it easier for Palantir to extend the reach of its software and AI technology across the federal government. With Accenture’s government branch, Palantir will train and certify at least 1,000 Accenture workers on its Foundry software as well as its AI tech, according to an Accenture press release The companies also said that together they could create “a 360-degree view” of government agency budgets, something the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has sought to build and use to review federal spending. (Palantir partnered with Accenture before in 2022, but this is the first partnership to focus on US government clients.)