'Shorting the Business Model, and the CEO' — Burry and Jefferies Both Flash Sell Signals on Palantir

Jefferies sets $70 price target, implying 46% downside — "Anthropic just blew past them doing 100 mph in the left lane."

Just one day after Michael Burry announced his short position on Palantir, unexpected reinforcement arrived. Jefferies senior software analyst Brent Thill initiated coverage of Palantir with an Underweight rating and a $70 price target — implying roughly 46% downside from current levels.

Burry didn't miss it. He wrote on Substack that "Jefferies cited my thesis." Thill did not mention Burry by name, but Burry noted that "the words felt familiar."

Burry's Language Is Unusually Blunt

In announcing his short position on Palantir, Burry said he is simultaneously shorting three things:

• The business model
• The company's entire premise
• The CEO

Shorting a CEO is not standard Wall Street language. It is a direct indictment of Alex Karp as a structural weakness of the business. Burry is maintaining his put options even as Palantir reported 85% revenue growth and eleven consecutive quarters of accelerating growth.

Burry currently holds puts on both NVDA and Palantir — the core legs of his AI bubble trade.

Thill's Case — The Fundamentals Are Fine. The Price Isn't.

Jefferies' Thill was unambiguous in his CNBC interview:

Palantir's fundamentals are outstanding. That's not the issue.

Brent Thill, Senior Software Analyst, Jefferies

The issue is valuation.

• Market cap: ~$330B
• 2027 estimated revenue: ~$12B
• Price-to-sales multiple on forward estimates: ~31x

Thill wrote that justifying this multiple requires "heroic durability assumptions."

The historical comparisons are sobering. Snowflake once traded at 50x revenue before collapsing to 7x. Datadog similarly compressed sharply from 30–40x. Amazon and Alphabet currently trade at 12–18x EBITDA.

PLTR achieving 11 consecutive quarters of accelerating growth is impressive — but that's precisely what makes the setup increasingly difficult.

Brent Thill, Jefferies

'Anthropic Just Passed Them Doing 100 MPH in the Left Lane'

Thill's sharpest challenge is on competition.

Look at Anthropic — they just blew right past Palantir. When Palantir is doing $12B next year, Anthropic is running at a $40B annualized pace. And that raises the question: why aren't you investing more in your sales force? You're expanding margins to 60% and claiming there's no competition — but someone is already passing you doing 100 mph in the left lane.

Brent Thill, Jefferies

CEO Karp has argued that Palantir has no meaningful competitors. Thill disagrees. With Anthropic already surpassing $30B in annualized revenue, Thill argues that Palantir's strategy of expanding margins while underinvesting in sales is exposing its competitive position to serious risk.

Yet the Broader Wall Street Consensus Remains 'Buy'

Despite two prominent bears stepping forward, the prevailing Wall Street view remains bullish. Of roughly 30 analysts tracked by TipRanks, 18 carry Buy ratings, while only 2 — including Jefferies — have Sell ratings.

The Street-high price target stands at $255, representing roughly 50% upside from current levels. Morgan Stanley's Sanjit Singh and Keith Weiss put forward a bull case of $382, arguing Palantir delivers the highest growth and highest profitability simultaneously among publicly traded software companies.

Reports have also emerged that Andrew Left of Citron Research and University of Florida finance professor Jay Ritter have joined the short side on Palantir.

The results are excellent. Whether the stock is priced to reflect those results — that's the entire debate.