Palantir CEO Alex Karp was asked about SpaceX going public, and he gave an answer that is worth paying close attention to (Save this).
"Bullish on space if the person doing it knows what they're doing. Bullish on Elon and space, yes. Bullish on space, no idea."
That is a masterclass in a two sentence investment thesis.
Karp is not saying space is a good bet in general but rather making the opposite point.
The space industry is littered with companies that raised billions on a compelling vision and could not execute the underlying physics, manufacturing, and orbital mechanics at any meaningful scale.
The technology is not the hard part but rather the operations are.
What makes Musk different, in Karp's view, is that he has already proven he can do it.
SpaceX is not a space company that is trying to figure out how to launch rockets reliably, it is the only organization that has achieved full rocket reusability, built a constellation of thousands of satellites, and demonstrated the manufacturing and launch cadence that orbital compute would require.
Karp also has more skin in this game than most people on television.
Palantir is one of the three companies alongside SpaceX and Anduril that emerged as frontrunners for Trump's Golden Dome missile defense program, a $185 billion initiative to build a space-based satellite network capable of detecting and intercepting incoming threats.
SpaceX provides the launch and satellite infrastructure, Palantir provides the AI software layer that makes sense of the data in real time.
In May 2026, the Space Force awarded $3.2 billion in initial Golden Dome contracts, with SpaceX and Palantir both on the list.
We at milk Road remains bullish on both Palantir and SpaceX.