Palantir Government Contracts: $13.7 Billion in Awards, Exposed
Palantir Technologies has become the dominant data platform across the federal government -- military targeting, immigration enforcement, IRS taxpayer data, and more. Here is every contract, every dollar, and what it means.
The Company Your Tax Dollars Built
Palantir Technologies was born from a CIA investment. In 2004, the agency's venture arm In-Q-Tel funded a small Silicon Valley startup founded by Peter Thiel, Alex Karp, and a team of PayPal alumni. The pitch: build software that could connect the dots across massive, fragmented intelligence databases to prevent the next 9/11.
Twenty-two years later, Palantir's software runs inside the CIA, the Pentagon, ICE, the IRS, the CDC, the Army, and dozens of other agencies. Their FY2025 revenue hit $4.48 billion -- up 56% in a single year. Multi-year contract ceilings awarded in 2025 alone total over $13.7 billion.
Here is every major contract, who is paying, what the software does, and what the implications are for the 162.6 million Americans who fund it.
The Numbers
FY2025 Revenue by Segment
Revenue Growth Trajectory
Revenue has grown 6.5x in six years. After decelerating to 17% in 2023, growth re-accelerated dramatically in 2024-2025 -- coinciding with massive new federal contract awards.
What It Costs You
At ~162.6 million individual tax filers, Palantir's estimated FY2025 U.S. government revenue of $2 billion works out to roughly $12.30 per taxpayer per year.
The $13.7 billion in multi-year contract ceilings awarded in 2025? That is $84.26 per taxpayer if fully exercised.
The Major Contracts
1. U.S. Army Software & Data Platform — $10 Billion
The largest single award. This multi-year contract makes Palantir the backbone data platform for the U.S. Army's modernization strategy, integrating their Foundry, TITAN, and Vantage products across Army operations.
What it does: Aggregates sensor data, logistics, personnel readiness, and intelligence into a single operational picture.
Why it matters: This is a generational lock-in. Once the Army's data infrastructure runs on Palantir, switching costs become effectively infinite.
2. Maven Smart System — $1.3 Billion (cumulative)
Project Maven started in 2017 as a Pentagon initiative to use AI for analyzing drone surveillance footage. Google won the original contract. After 4,000 Google employees signed a petition protesting the company's involvement in weapons targeting, Google withdrew in 2018.
Palantir picked it up.
Contract history:
What it does: AI-powered intelligence analysis for military targeting. The system processes satellite imagery, signals intelligence, and sensor data to identify threats and potential targets.
Why it matters: Maven explicitly reduces the time between identifying a target and engaging it -- what the military calls the "sensor-to-shooter" timeline. This is AI-assisted lethal targeting.
3. IRS "Mega API" / DOGE Project — $1.5 Billion (reported)
Palantir employees have been embedded at the IRS alongside DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) staff to build a unified API layer across all IRS databases.
What it does: Creates a single access point to all taxpayer data -- Social Security numbers, tax returns, employment records, bank information, and filing history.
What they access: Every tax return filed in the United States.
Why it matters: Multiple members of Congress allege this violates Internal Revenue Code Sections 6103 and 7213A -- post-Watergate laws specifically enacted to prevent the weaponization of taxpayer data. Senator Ron Wyden, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and Senator Edward Markey have formally demanded answers from Palantir CEO Alex Karp.
4. Army Vantage — $618.9 Million
What it does: SaaS analytics platform for Army readiness, logistics, and personnel data. Think of it as the Army's internal business intelligence dashboard.
Contract: $400.7 million base, up to $618.9 million with options. Follow-on contract awarded December 2024.
5. CDC Disease Surveillance — $443 Million
What it does: Consolidates disease surveillance data across the CDC's fragmented systems into a single Foundry-powered platform.
Context: This originated during COVID-19 when the CDC needed rapid data integration. It is one of Palantir's less controversial contracts -- public health surveillance is a legitimate government function with broad bipartisan support.
6. ICE Immigration Enforcement — $287 Million+ (since 2014)
This is where it gets heated.
ImmigrationOS ($30M): AI platform for identifying, tracking, and prioritizing immigrants for deportation. Replaced the older Falcon and ICM systems.
ELITE (Enhanced Leads Identification & Targeting for Enforcement): Generates dossiers on deportation targets with "confidence scores" on addresses. Ingests data from:
What this means in practice: A person who enrolled in Medicaid or filed their taxes -- activities the government encouraged them to do -- may find that data used to locate and deport them. The Electronic Frontier Foundation called this "a betrayal of data privacy and taxpayers' trust."
Sole-source concern: ICE sole-sourced the original Investigative Case Management (ICM) system to Palantir. No competition. No competitive pricing.
7. TITAN — $178.4 Million
What it does: AI-powered mobile ground stations that process sensor data from space, aerial, and ground layers in real time.
Purpose: Part of the military's CJADC2 (Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control) initiative. TITAN is designed to connect every sensor to every shooter across every domain.
Phase 3: $178.4 million for 10 prototype ground stations (5 Advanced, 5 Basic). This is part of the larger $10 billion Army contract.
8. HHS Blanket Purchase Agreement — $90 Million
What it does: Makes Palantir's Foundry platform available to all HHS agencies -- not just CDC, but CMS, NIH, FDA, SAMHSA, and others.
Why it matters: This is a government-wide expansion play. Instead of selling to individual agencies, Palantir secured a single agreement that lets any HHS component buy their software.
The Agency Breakdown
Who Pays Palantir the Most
DOD alone accounts for approximately 87% of all tracked Palantir obligations through USAspending.gov. But this excludes classified intelligence contracts and the newer IRS/DOGE work.
The Controversies
1. Function Creep: Your Data, Their Weapon
Palantir's core value proposition to the government is connecting databases that were never meant to be connected. Medicaid data merged with immigration records. Tax returns merged with law enforcement databases. Passport data merged with cell phone locations.
Each of these datasets was collected for a specific, legitimate purpose. Palantir's software eliminates the walls between them.
The EFF documented how ICE used Palantir's ELITE tool to access Medicaid enrollment records from HHS -- effectively turning a healthcare safety net into a deportation tool. When people avoid Medicaid enrollment, filing taxes, or interacting with government services out of fear, the public health and fiscal consequences cascade.
2. Predictive Policing: The New Orleans Experiment
From 2012 to 2018, Palantir operated a secret predictive policing program in New Orleans -- pro bono, meaning no contract, no public record, no oversight.
The system analyzed gang databases, criminal records, social media posts, and jailhouse phone calls to create a "risk assessment database" covering approximately 1% of the city's population.
The secrecy: The city council did not know. Defense attorneys were never informed that the Palantir tool was used in their clients' cases -- a potential violation of Brady v. Maryland disclosure requirements.
The outcome: The program was terminated in March 2018 after investigative journalists exposed it.
3. Conflicts of Interest
Stephen Miller, the chief architect of the current administration's immigration enforcement policy, holds a financial stake in Palantir. His policy decisions directly increase demand for Palantir's ICE products.
Former Palantir employees have moved into key government IT and DOGE roles, then directed contracts back to Palantir.
Senator Elizabeth Warren questioned Palantir executive Shyam Sankar about defense contracting pricing at an Armed Services Committee hearing. Sankar declined to commit to specific oversight recommendations.
4. Sole-Source Contracting
Multiple major Palantir contracts were awarded without competition:
Sole-source contracts eliminate the competitive pressure that keeps pricing honest. When there is no competing bid, there is no market mechanism to ensure taxpayers are getting a fair price.
5. The Valuation Question
Palantir's stock trades at approximately 509x earnings -- meaning investors are paying $509 for every $1 of current profit. This valuation only makes sense if investors believe government spending on Palantir will continue accelerating dramatically.
In other words: Palantir's stock price is a bet on continued expansion of government surveillance and data integration infrastructure. The financial incentive structure points toward more contracts, more data access, and less oversight.
What Civil Liberties Organizations Say
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF):
Called Palantir's record on privacy and human rights "shaky-at-best." Sought federal court intervention to block use of Medicaid data for immigration enforcement. Documented ICE's ELITE tool as a case study in surveillance overreach.
ACLU:
Published analysis of New Orleans predictive policing calling it a "cautionary tale about the pitfalls of predictive policing." Ongoing concerns about Palantir enabling mass surveillance infrastructure.
Privacy International:
Investigated and documented Palantir's secret programs. Published detailed analysis of how Palantir's data integration enables unprecedented government surveillance of civilians.
American Immigration Council:
Documented ImmigrationOS capabilities and raised concerns about accuracy, civil rights, and inevitable scope expansion.
The Core Questions
For taxpayers:
For contractors:
For everyone:
How to Track Palantir Contracts Yourself
All non-classified federal contract obligations are public record. You can track Palantir's spending in real time:
The data exists. The contracts are public. The question is whether enough people look.
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