Palantir purchases gold as hedge against “black swan event”

Palantir Technologies Inc. said the storage of gold bars is preparing for a new “black swan event.” The company spent $50.7 million this month on gold, part of an unusual investment strategy that also includes startups, blank-check companies, and possibly Bitcoin. 

Palantir had already said that Bitcoin would be accepted as a form of payment. A Palantir spokesperson said nobody did that yet.

In an interview, Shyam Sankar, the chief operating officer, said that he embraced non-traditional currencies “that reflect more of a worldview. “With more black swan events, you have to be prepared for the future.”

The purchase of gold was entered into a securities report for its trimester results last week and reported by the CEO Barron’s earlier this week. Intraday trading on Wednesday increased Palantir shares by about 5%.

According to the filing, the 100-unce gold bars of Palantir will be maintained in a secure place in the US northeast. “The company is able at all times with reasonable notice to take physical possession of the gold bars stored at the plant,” said Palantir.

Palantir co-founded by technology billionaire Peter Thiel and CEO Alex Karp developed the software.

It’s shaped like a free thinker company. Last year Palantir moved to Denver and mocked his Silicon Valley colleagues on the way out. Sankar compared Palantir’s culture with an “artist colony” in the interview, rather than a technology company that churned out assembly software.

Palantir software has been strongly adopted by governments to enable them to sense the coronavirus pandemic, the current so-called black Swan, an unpredictable random event.

It has around 2.3 billion dollars in cash and is exploring creative uses. Palantir said he had planned to invest in Bitcoin in May. And it takes part in start-ups that are Palantir software customers, an approach that has helped to boost sales in the second quarter.

(In the fourth paragraph updates with the shares. The company corrected in an earlier version of the story the mistake of acceptance of gold as a form of payment.