President Donald Trump did something no sitting president has done publicly — he appeared to endorse a publicly traded company through its stock ticker symbol, praising defense tech firm Palantir Technologies (NASDAQ: PLTR ) on TruthSocial on Friday in a post that reversed the stock’s slide within minutes.
“Palantir Technologies (PLTR) has proven to have great war-fighting capabilities and tools. Just ask your enemies!!! President DJT,” Trump wrote (1).
The post came at the end of a brutal week for stocks. Shares of Palantir had fallen 14–16% over the past five days and had fallen as much as 6% on the Friday before Trump’s endorsement. In a few minutes, the share price rose about 3% to around $123 (2). Shares still closed the day at $128.06.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Virginia) was among the first to flag the post, asking on X: “Is this another blatant example of Trump manipulating the markets?” (3). Warner’s post included a screenshot of Trump’s true social message.
The selloff had less to do with Trump than Anthropic — and a broader path into the software sector.
On April 7, Anthropic released the Claude Mythos Preview, a frontier AI model built for its Project Glasswing cybersecurity initiative. The model wasn’t made publicly available—Anthropic shared it with about 52 organizations—but the release spooked investors who were valuing enterprise software companies like Planetary as immune to disruptions leveraging AI (4). Separately, Anthropic’s annual recurring revenue rose from $9 billion at the end of 2025 to $30 billion as of early April (5), raising immediate questions about whether Palantir’s premium valuation can be sustained.
The Pentagon blacklisted Anthropic in March after the AI lab refused to lift safety guardrails on its cloud models for autonomous weapons and mass surveillance. According to Reuters (6), this led Palantir to begin removing the cloud from its Maven Smart Systems platform — the backbone of its military AI work — and begin rebuilding parts of its software. The forced restructuring exposed how dependent Palantir’s defense business had become on an AI supplier.
The panic was fueled by “Big Short” investor Michael Berry, who posted – then deleted – a message on X announcing that “Anthropic is eating Palantir’s lunch.” Barry backs up the claim with data from corporate spend tracker Ramp, which shows that about 25% of businesses on the platform now pay for Anthropic, up from just 4% a year ago (7).
As of Thursday’s close, PLTR was down about 28% year to date and about 38% below its 52-week high of $207.52 set in November 2025.
The post drew immediate scrutiny, given the deep ties between the Trump administration and Palantir.
The company was co-founded by Peter Thiel, a longtime Trump mega-donor who served on his 2016 transition team and later mentored Vice President JD Vance. CEO Alex Karp founded MAGA Inc. in December 2024. I contributed $1 million and another $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund (8). Palantir is among dozens of corporate donors — along with Meta, Amazon, Apple and Google. Support for Trump’s planned $400 million White House Ballroom renovation.
Financial relationships go both ways. According to USAspending.gov data (9), Palantir’s federal contracts increased from about $541 million in FY 2024 to $970.5 million in FY 2025. And in March, Deputy Secretary of Defense Steve Feinberg directed that Palantir’s Maven AI system be designated a program of record — a step that, once completed by September, would effectively guarantee it long-term defense budget protections.
CNN’s Aaron Black wrote on X that Trump is “publicly promoting the donor business, complete with his stock ticker” (10). CREW, a nonpartisan watchdog, called Tucker’s involvement “unusual” and possibly “an attempt to help the stock price of a major backer” (5).
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Not everyone sees trouble. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives maintains an Outperform rating with a $230 price target, calling Burry’s bearish thesis a “narrative” and highlighting Palantir’s 70% year-over-year revenue growth in Q4 2025 (11).
Barry isn’t backing down. He disclosed on Friday that he still has long-dated put options against PLTR – June 2027 $50 puts and December 2026 $100 puts – and called the stock “wildly overvalued” (12). About 109 times forward earnings, compared to a sector median of about 21, $432.9 million with insider sales and zero insider purchases over the past three months.
Palantir CEO Alex Karp has previously called Barry’s short positions “super weird” and “bat-crazy.” Palantir has not publicly commented on Trump’s post.
This isn’t Trump’s first time channeling the markets from his phone. Last month, he announced a halt to strikes on Iran before markets opened, sending oil prices soaring. more than Within two minutes, $760 million was traded in oil futures.About 15 minutes ago Trump’s Truth social post about stopping strikes (13). Three Polymarket accounts correctly bet on Iran’s post-ceasefire timing and won more than $600,000. Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Baqir Ghalibov, called the tactic “a set-up for profiteering” (14).
Even the White House shrugged off the issue. On March 24, the White House Administration Office sent a Staff-wide email alerts employees Against the use of non-public information to trade in financial markets or on prediction platforms, calling it a “criminal offence”.
Members of Congress have also been active in the stock. Over the past six months, lawmakers have disclosed 14 separate PLTR trades — eight purchases and six sales (15).
Presidents are largely exempt from insider trading laws, and there is no clear legal framework for when a sitting commander-in-chief leaves a stock ticker for millions of followers. There is no need for disclosure when Truth Social is posted by a variable president.
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@realDonaldTrump/Truth Social (1); hill (2, 9); @MarkWarner/X (3); anthropic (4); CNBC (5, 12, 13); Reuters (6); ramp (7); NBC News (8); @AaronBlake/X (10); tip rank (11); Al Jazeera (14); tremor quantitative (15)
This article was originally published by Moneywise.com Under the title: Trump’s name skips Palantir through the ticker symbol, the first president to hype the stock. It raised $10B in minutes amid a 16% freefall.
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