As data mining firm Palantir’s shares continue to climb, Thiel is cashing out. He’s not the only Palantir insider doing so.
Palantir cofounder and major investor Peter Thiel, worth $9.8 billion per Forbes’ estimates, sold approximately 16 million Palantir shares between Tuesday and Thursday this week, for $600 million in gross proceeds, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Thursday. Thiel’s newest transactions bring his total Palantir share sales to just over $1 billion in 2024.
Thiel’s sales this week started one day after Palantir joined the S&P 500 and came as its share price hovers around $37, up 150% from a year ago. The company now sports an $82 billion market capitalization and trades at 35 times revenue, the highest multiple on the S&P. Palantir helps companies gather, analyze and manage their data and is known for a longstanding relationship with the U.S. military—government customers made up more than 50% of its $2.5 billion in revenue (for the year ending in June 2024). The company has had such a banner year in part thanks to its ability to turn a profit on AI features it’s been building for decades and in part thanks to the general hype around AI. Palantir’s share price is the highest it’s been since its January 2021 all-time high closing price of $39—which was around the last time Thiel sold Palantir shares and shortly after it went public in late 2020. Like many other billionaires, Thiel didn’t sell during the market downturn in 2022 or as the market rebounded in 2023.
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