$10 Billion, 10 Year US Army Contract Elevates Palantir To Defense Contracting Royalty

There are no official criteria for what constitutes membership in the upper echelon of the US military industrial complex, but a $10 billion deal that consolidates dozens of contracts under a single blanket purchase agreement sure makes it seem like Palantir has earned entry.

The US Army announced on Thursday that, rather than continue to buy Palantir products on one of 75 different contracts the branch has with the data analytics software company, it's awarding a ten-year Enterprise Agreement (EA) with the aforementioned cap of $10 billion. Like a standard blanket purchase agreement, the deal allows the Army to buy what it needs from Palantir over the course of a decade. 

It doesn't appear that the Army is awarding Palantir any new contracts based on the press release or a procurement notice published about the contract in May. According to that document, the Army had figured out that it's doing so much business with Palantir over so many separate procurement actions that it's wasting a lot of time and money.

"Consolidating these efforts under an EA will streamline future modifications and task orders under a single set of ordering instructions and terms and conditions," the May publication pointed out. "Instead of managing dozens of contracts with varying terms, the government will empower a single team to manage the contract." 

With 75 active contracts between the Army and Palantir, it's nearly impossible to track down what exactly the Army is using from Palantir, though we do have some ideas.

Palantir won its first major defense contract from the Army in 2019 when it scored $800 million to work on new battlefield intelligence software for the branch. It also scored contracts to build things like mobile battlefield intelligence trucks, and the Pentagon tapped it to develop the Maven Smart System after Google backed out of the deal following employee protests. 

More broadly, Palantir offers various data analytics tools and suites, any number of which may be in use. 

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Beyond the US Army and the DoD, Palantir has also worked with US Immigration officials to develop deportation software, at the IRS to help it with new software initiatives, and even at US-backed mortgage broker Fannie Mae, where the company's code has been put to use detecting fraud.

Palantir has found itself in US President Donald Trump's good graces thanks to CEO Alex Karp's previous comments about his opposition to "woke" ideology, support for DOGE, and comments about "powering the West to innate superiority." This latest contract will likely do little to assuage conspiracy-minded fears that Palantir is gobbling up and monetizing government data for the benefit of Trump and a coterie of right-wing billionaires. 

By scoring an EA, Palantir finds itself in the company of defense contractors like Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and Lockheed Martin – an elite club, to be sure.

Palantir declined to comment on this story beyond pointing to the Army press release, while the US Army didn't immediately respond to questions. ®