Palantir Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: PLTR) reached a record high on Friday following a 10.8% rally last week, marking the stock’s best weekly performance since early August.
Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar pushed back strongly against reports linking the company’s Maven AI platform to a deadly strike on a school in Minab, Iran, that killed at least 123 schoolchildren.
Sankar spoke to CBS News over the weekend, rejecting claims that military personnel had relied excessively on the Maven platform during the February incident.
“The Bloomberg reporting is wrong,” Sankar said, adding that “the likely cause is human error” and urging that the final investigation be awaited before conclusions are drawn.
Palantir responded to the incident by developing additional AI capabilities designed to introduce further checks into targeting workflows, according to Sankar.
“Responding to the urgency of the moment, we built additional AI that actually double checks more of the work outside the process that we own,” he said.
Sankar also argued that AI tools help military personnel improve the consistency of safety checks and target verification, rather than autonomously selecting targets, noting that tasks previously requiring 50 people working for two weeks can now be completed by one person in four hours.
The stock’s surge was further supported by bullish Wall Street calls, with Goldman Sachs upgrading Palantir to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ with a $230 price target, while Barclays initiated coverage with an ‘Overweight’ rating and a $265 price target.
Barclays analyst Anthony Valentini said the U.S. is in the “early innings of a modern day industrial revolution,” positioning Palantir to benefit from technology adoption across defense, aerospace, and other industries.
Goldman Sachs analyst Gabriela Borges sees Palantir’s addressable market expanding as governments and businesses increasingly seek sovereign AI solutions that allow them to retain control over their data, and also expects demand for customized AI applications to grow as enterprises move beyond generic chatbot tools.
Of the 32 analysts covering PLTR, 22 recommend ‘Buy’ or higher, seven rate it ‘Hold,’ and three rate it ‘Sell’ or lower, per Koyfin, with an average price target of $209.05 implying roughly 3% upside from Friday’s closing price.
Retail sentiment on Stocktwits shifted to ‘extremely bullish’ over the weekend, up from ‘neutral’ during the week, with message volume surging 271% over the past week.
One trader on the platform noted, “$PLTR Tomorrow’s price action should be very interesting, but I’m much more interested in where we close on Friday,” reflecting growing enthusiasm around the stock’s momentum.
Another trader took aim at noted investor Michael Burry and his short position on Palantir, writing, “$PLTR Burry done yet? must be getting expensive seeing puts melt.”
Year to date, PLTR stock is up 17.6%, cementing its position as one of the more closely watched names in the AI and defense technology space.
