So Andrew Left, the guy who’s basically made a career out of telling everyone why their favorite stocks are garbage, is back with another hot take. This time he’s coming for Palantir (PLTR), and honestly? His math is kind of savage.
Here’s the tea: Left’s firm Citron Research just dropped a note basically saying “Hey, remember how everyone’s losing their minds over OpenAI being worth $500 billion? Well, that actually proves Palantir is ridiculously overpriced.” It’s like using your friend’s expensive designer bag to prove your other friend’s knockoff is still overpriced.
The logic is pretty straightforward once you break it down. OpenAI is raising $6 billion at a $500 billion valuation, which gives us a nice benchmark to work with. Left’s team did some quick math: if you take Palantir’s projected 2026 revenue (around $5.6 billion) and apply OpenAI’s price-to-revenue multiple of 17x, you get… drumroll please… about $40 per share for Palantir.
Now here’s where it gets spicy: Palantir was trading around $164 when this note came out. That means Left is basically saying the stock needs to drop 77% just to be fairly valued. Ouch.
But wait, there’s more! (I know, I sound like an infomercial.) Left isn’t even saying $40 would be a good price. He’s saying that even at $40, Palantir would still be “one of the most expensive software-as-a-service stocks in history.” That’s like saying your overpriced latte would still be overpriced even if it was half the cost.
The real question Left is asking is pretty fair: Does Palantir deserve to trade at the same multiple as OpenAI? And his answer is a resounding “hell no.” He points out that OpenAI’s growth is “unprecedented in tech history,” while Palantir is… well, not that.
Now, before you start thinking this is just another short-seller trying to tank a stock for profit (which, let’s be honest, it partly is), the timing is interesting. Palantir just reported killer Q2 earnings and has been on an absolute tear this year, up over 118%. But the stock has been sliding lately, down about 6% the day this note came out.
Here’s the thing about valuation arguments: they can be right and still take forever to play out. Just ask anyone who shorted Tesla in 2020. Markets can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent, as the saying goes.
But Left’s comparison is actually pretty clever. By using OpenAI as the benchmark, he’s not just throwing out random numbers. He’s saying “Look, even if we give Palantir the same respect as the hottest AI company on the planet, it’s still way too expensive.”
Whether you agree with Left or not, you’ve got to admit the guy knows how to make a point. Using OpenAI’s valuation to argue against Palantir is like using a Michelin-starred restaurant to prove your local diner is overpriced. It’s bold, it’s memorable, and it just might be right.
The market will ultimately decide, but for now, Palantir investors might want to buckle up. When Andrew Left comes knocking with this kind of detailed analysis, things tend to get interesting.