Palantir Technologies has become one of the federal government's most talked-about software vendors — supplying data-analytics platforms to the Pentagon, the intelligence community, and homeland-security agencies. So how much does the government actually pay it? Here is what the public spending record shows, and how to check the latest figures yourself.
For the current, itemized totals — Palantir's contract dollars by agency and its largest individual awards — see our live Palantir government contracts page, which is built directly from federal award data and refreshes automatically. This article explains what those numbers mean.
How much does the government pay Palantir?
Since October 2023, federal agencies have obligated more than $2.8 billion to Palantir in prime contract awards, according to records published on USAspending.gov. The overwhelming majority comes from the Department of Defense — roughly $2 billion — with the rest spread across the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Health and Human Services, and others. "Obligated" means the government has legally committed the money; it is a measure of spending, not a judgment about whether the spending is wise.
Palantir's biggest federal deals
- Maven Smart System (Defense). Palantir's work on the Pentagon's Maven program — AI-assisted targeting and battlefield data — accounts for some of its largest single task orders, including deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
- CDAO / enterprise AI (Defense). Task orders under the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office have been among Palantir's largest recent awards.
- Army Vantage (Defense). A data-analytics platform used across the Army.
- Investigative Case Management (DHS). Long-running operations-and-maintenance work for Homeland Security, the contract most often cited in coverage of Palantir's immigration-enforcement role.
Each of these appears, with its exact dollar figure and a link to the official award record, on the live Palantir contracts page.
Why Palantir's contracts draw scrutiny
Two reasons. First, the dollar figures have grown quickly, making Palantir a case study in how a software company becomes a major defense contractor. Second, its homeland-security work — particularly data systems used in immigration enforcement — is politically contested. Tracking the contracts is the factual baseline for any of those debates: the spending record shows what was bought and by whom, not whether it should have been.
How to track Palantir's contracts yourself
Everything here comes from public data. Our Palantir contracts page breaks the spending down by agency and lists the largest awards, each linking to its full record on USAspending.gov. You can compare Palantir to the other top federal contractors, see which members of Congress are funded by Big Tech employers, and check whether any member of Congress has traded Palantir (PLTR) stock. Following the money is the whole point.