Remember Michael Burry? The guy who called the 2008 housing collapse and inspired “The Big Short”? Well, he’s got a new take on the AI wars, and it’s not great news for Palantir fans.
Burry just dropped a hot take on X: Anthropic is “eating Palantir’s lunch.” And honestly? The data backs him up.
Here’s the thing—Palantir has been the Wall Street darling for years, raking in government contracts and building a mystique around its data-crunching prowess. But Anthropic, the company behind Claude, is doing something different. It’s winning over businesses by being, well, actually useful and easy to implement.
The numbers are wild. Anthropic went from a $9 billion valuation to $30 billion in just a few months. Palantir? It took them 20 years to hit $5 billion. That’s not a sprint versus a marathon—that’s a different sport entirely.
What’s driving this? Burry points to Anthropic’s “plug and play” model. Basically, Claude works. Companies can integrate it into their operations without needing a PhD in data science or a team of consultants. It’s intuitive, it’s cheaper, and it actually solves problems. Revolutionary concept, right?
The real kicker comes from data tracked by Ramp, a financial operations platform. According to their March 2026 analysis, nearly one in four businesses on Ramp now pays for Anthropic. A year ago? It was one in 25. That’s explosive growth. Meanwhile, OpenAI saw its largest single-month decline since they started tracking adoption.
Here’s where it gets spicy: Anthropic is now capturing 73% of all new enterprise AI spending. That’s not market share—that’s market dominance. And it’s happening in real time.
Burry acknowledges that Palantir has those lucrative government contracts, but he’s not impressed. In his view, the real money is in the private sector, where businesses are voting with their wallets. And they’re voting for Claude.
This isn’t just Burry being contrarian for clicks either. He’s actually short Palantir, so he’s got skin in the game. And he’s not alone—short-seller Andrew Left has also bet against Palantir, while bullish on other AI plays like Databricks.
The broader story here is about market dynamics shifting. For years, the narrative was that enterprise software required complexity, mystique, and government connections. Anthropic is proving that’s nonsense. Businesses want solutions that work, integrate smoothly, and don’t require hiring a small army of specialists.
It’s a reminder that in tech, yesterday’s moat becomes today’s liability. Palantir built its empire on being the only game in town for certain problems. But Anthropic is solving those problems faster, cheaper, and with less friction.
Whether Burry’s short position pays off remains to be seen, but one thing’s clear: the AI market is reshuffling, and Anthropic’s got the momentum. For investors watching this space, that’s worth paying attention to.
