The "Big Short" investor just made a public bet that Palantir's era is ending. Michael Burry disclosed put options betting PLTR crashes to $50-$100 by late 2026 and mid-2027.
His reasoning cuts deeper than valuation. Burry says Palantir is built for a world that AI just made obsolete.
Palantir's business depends on Forward Deployed Engineers - highly paid specialists who literally move into customer offices and live there for years. That's a low-margin, high-touch model designed for defense and intelligence work.
Burry argues that Anthropic's Claude performs similar analysis in seconds at a fraction of the consulting cost. When the same work can be done by software instead of embedded teams, the consulting model breaks down.
It's like owning a telegraph company when radio arrived - the old model worked fine until suddenly it didn't.
Palantir is down 28% for 2026 despite Trump's Truth Social endorsement praising the company's "great war fighting capabilities." Shares briefly jumped on the post, then fell again.
That bounce-and-drop pattern tells you the market doesn't believe a social media endorsement changes the fundamental problem. Burry says he's not selling his puts - June 2027 $50 strikes and December 2026 $100 strikes - signaling he believes the decline has further to run.
Watch Palantir's customer announcements this quarter. If major contracts go to AI platforms instead of traditional consulting, Burry's bet transforms from contrarian to obvious.
