Michael Burley has long been bearish on Palantir, but he recently offered a new take on the market’s AI darling, comparing its prospects to another giant in the space.
Anthropic is not yet publicly traded, but it has been in the spotlight on Wall Street for months after Claude chatbot market’s new tool sent software stocks plummeting. Barry didn’t say much about the broader field, but he said in an X post on Wednesday that he thinks Anthropic has an easy lead over its competitors.
“Anthropic is eating Palantir’s lunch,” Barry said. “Anthropic’s ARR increased significantly from $9 billion to $30 billion because Anthropic provides an easier, cheaper, and more intuitive solution for enterprises.”
This came just months after Berry announced his short position in Palantir. He has previously expressed skepticism about the broader AI boom, suggesting a bubble is forming.
Now, he seems to think the AI market is moving toward a “plug-and-play” model, especially Anthropic, where companies can quickly integrate their AI tools into their businesses.
Burley acknowledged that government contracts with Palantir are lucrative, but said he doesn’t think they give the company an advantage. In his view, the real profitability comes from the private sector operations that are at the core of Anthropic’s valuation.
“Anthropic went from $9 billion to $30 billion in a matter of months, but it took PLTR 20 years to reach $5 billion,” Varley added. ”[It] accounts for 73% of all new business spending.
Citing data from financial operations platform Lamp, he pointed to a March 2026 analysis by economist Ara Harajian that provided a detailed breakdown of how much Anthropic’s business has grown recently.
Parts of the report highlighted the zero-sum nature of the AI market, showing a surge in companies flocking to Anthropic at the expense of rivals.
“Nearly 1 in 4 Ramp companies now pay Anthropic (versus a year ago) 1 in 25 people),” Karazian wrote. “OpenAI’s 1.5% decline was the largest single month of any AI model company since we began tracking business AI adoption.”
He added that the percentage of companies choosing to pay for Claude before OpenAI has also steadily increased, reaching 73% in February.
Barry isn’t the only investor to bet on Palantir recently. In September, short seller Andrew Left revealed he was shorting the stock, telling Business Insider he was bullish on AI startup Databricks, which, like Anthropic, is still privately held.