Palantir beats Wall Street expectations amid Trump immigration crackdown
Palantir celebrated its latest financial results on Monday, as the tech company blew past Wall Street expectations and continues to prop up the Trump administration’s push to deport immigrants,Palantir has secured millions of dollars in federal contracts amid Trump’s crackdown on immigrants,The multibillion-dollar Denver-based firm creates tech focused on surveillance and analytics, to be used by the government agencies and private companies,Palantir’s biggest US customer is the Department of Defense; it also works with the Department of Homeland Security, and the majority of its revenue comes from deals with the federal government,Palantir reported 66% year-over-year growth in revenue from government contracts, to $570m.
Palantir has drawn further criticism over its role in the government’s immigration agenda, since federal immigration officers killed two protesters in Minneapolis last month,Palantir’s chief executive, Alex Karp, told CNBC in an interview on Monday that Palantir helps protect sensitive data,“If you are critical of ICE, you should be out there protesting for more Palantir,” he said,“Our product, actually, in its core, requires people to conform with fourth amendment data protection,”The company beat Wall Street expectations of $1.
33bn with $1,41bn in revenue for the fourth quarter of 2025,It reported earnings per share (EPS) of $0,25 – which also surpassed Wall Street expectations of $0,23 in EPS.
The company’s stocks jumped about 8% in after-hours trading after the release,Karp described the company’s growth on an earnings call as “one of the truly iconic performances in the history of corporate performance”,He wrote in a letter accompanying the earnings report that the $1,4bn in revenue generated in last year’s fourth quarter marks a new record – a 70% growth rate over the same period the year before,“We did this while supporting, in critical manner, some of the most interesting intricate, unusual, operations that the US government has been involved in – many of which we can’t comment on – but were the highlight of last year and highly motivating to all of us at Palantir,” Karp said.
Karp doubled down on his data protection claim on the call, arguing that Palantir’s work with the US government, including intelligence agencies, aligns with the fourth amendment and makes sure “every institution that uses [Palantir’s] products is doing it within conformity of the law and ethics of America”.Data privacy advocates are not convinced.“Palantir tools are ICE’s digital henchmen,” said Will Owen, communications director at the non-profit Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, in a statement to the Guardian.“Their revenue may be up thanks to Trump, but no one is buying that they hold ICE accountable.”Last year, ICE awarded Palantir a nearly $30m contract to build ImmigrationOS, which makes it easier to pull information about immigrants from across government databases – regardless of the accuracy of those records.
404 Media recently reported on the existence of another tool created by Palantir for the federal government: Enhanced Leads Identification & Targeting for Enforcement (Elite).Elite “populates a map with potential deportation targets, brings up a dossier on each person, and provides a ‘confidence score’ on the person’s current address”, according to 404 Media.The program reportedly relies on address data from the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes Medicaid.Wired reported last week that the federal government had been using Palantir’s AI tools to process immigration enforcement tips.Wired also reported that the health department has been using other Palantir AI tools to screen grants and job descriptions for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), and “gender ideology”.
Palantir has said there is no malicious intent in its work with the federal government.“To be absolutely clear, Palantir is not working on any master database project to unify databases across federal agencies,” read a company blogpost last week.“Palantir has not proposed the US government build a ‘master list’ for the surveillance of citizens, nor have we been asked to consider building such a system for any customer.”Palantir has described 404 Media’s claims about the Elite tool as misleading; the company says it is “used for prioritized enforcement to surface the likely addresses of specific individuals, such as those with final orders of removal or with high severity criminal charges”.Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” awarded the DHS and ICE huge budgets to pursue the administration’s anti-immigrant policies, including $45bn for ICE to expand its detention capabilities.
In 2025, Palantir’s federal contracts almost doubled – and increased to more than $970m; this amount was distributed across the government, mostly to the defense department, but it also includes the DHS.
Barnsley rebranded UK’s first ‘tech town’ as US giants join AI push
In 2002 Barnsley toyed with a redesign as a Tuscan hill village as it sought out a brighter post-industrial future. In 2021 it adopted the airily vague slogan “the place of possibilities”. Now it is trying a different image: Britain’s first “tech town”.The technology secretary, Liz Kendall, has anointed the South Yorkshire community as a trailblazer for “how AI can improve everyday life” in the UK.In the latest move in Labour’s drive to inject AI into Britain’s bloodstream, the government has announced four US tech companies – Microsoft, Google, Cisco and Adobe – have agreed to help as the council pushes to apply AI to local schools, hospitals, GPs and businesses in Barnsley, an area of South Yorkshire which has struggled with unemployment and deprivation since the coal pits closed
US jobs report delayed again amid government shutdown
The US’s closely watched jobs report will once again be delayed, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced on Monday, amid a government shutdown.The January 2026 jobs report, originally scheduled to be released on Friday, will be rescheduled when federal funding resumes. Data collection for the report has been completed, but the shutdown has forced a delay to releasing the report, which will provide crucial jobs data on the US labor market following the weakest year for job growth since 2020, with the addition of only 584,000 jobs in 2025 compared with 2 million in 2024.“The Employment Situation release for January 2026 will not be released as scheduled on Friday, February 6, 2026. The release will be rescheduled upon the resumption of government funding,” Emily Liddel, associate commissioner of the BLS, said in a statement
Gold and silver prices seesaw as FTSE 100 hits record high
Gold and silver prices seesawed on Monday, after a “meltdown” in the metals market deepened and rattled investors around the world.Gold prices tumbled by as much as 8% to $4,465 an ounce on Monday, ending a run of record highs that took it to nearly $5,600 last week. It later recovered some ground, but was still down by 3.5% at $4,700 in afternoon trading.Silver fell by as much as 7%, after a 30% slump on Friday, before recovering slightly to $79
FTSE 100 ends day at closing high after gold and silver fell in ‘metals meltdown’ – as it happened
Oof! Britain’s stock market has now shrugged off its earlier worries, and hit a new alltime high.With the slump in metal prices easing, the FTSE 100 has bounded ahead to hit a fresh record peak of 10,298 points, up 0.7% today.Mining companies have recovered most of their earlier losses, helped by a moderate recovery in precious metal prices after their tumble early this morning.And finally…
UK manufacturing growth accelerates as export orders rise
British manufacturers enjoyed one of their best months since Labour came to power in January, according to a closely watched survey, adding to signs that the Bank of England will decide to keep interest rates on hold this week.The purchasing managers’ index (PMI), which measures activity in the private manufacturing sector, rose to 51.8 in January from 50.6 in December, the best reading since August 2024. Any reading above 50 represents growth
Royal Mail-owned courier faces tribunal over drivers’ rights
Dozens of drivers are taking legal action against a Royal Mail-owned courier service, arguing that they are entitled to workers’ rights.The 46 drivers are classified as self-employed by eCourier. They work around the clock making deliveries, including transporting vital blood and tissue samples to and from NHS hospitals.Their case, due to be heard at an employment tribunal this year, alleges that the company has wrongly categorised them as self-employed despite features of their work that they say point to worker status. Such a classification would confer rights such as the minimum wage and holiday pay
Sydney Biennale 2026: Hoor Al Qasimi unveils expansive program for 25th edition
Meryl Streep is as withering as ever in first full-length trailer for Devil Wears Prada 2
Letter: Mark Fisher obituary
Wil Anderson: ‘I honestly believe being mistaken for Adam Hills is one of the great gifts of my life’
‘One of the greatest comic talents’: tributes paid to actor Catherine O’Hara
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