Palantir's Great Stock Price Hack: Just Say the Quiet Part Loud (Then Delete It)

Palantir board member accidentally tells truth about corporate strategy: 'Everything we do is for tendies.' Deletes tweet, pretends to care about fundamentals.

Let me tell you about the three rules of boosting your stock price:

1. Do dumb stuff that makes the stock go up

2. Never admit you're doing dumb stuff to make the stock go up

3. Definitely don't tweet about it in Reddit-speak

Palantir just broke rule #3 spectacularly, and it's absolutely beautiful.

Here's the thing about running a public company: There are two parallel universes of acceptable behaviour. In Universe A, you "focus on building long-term value for stakeholders while executing on our strategic vision to drive sustainable growth." In Universe B, you buy gold mines and do interviews without pants on (looking at you, AMC).

Both strategies can work! It's just that you're only supposed to admit to Universe A.

There are three main arguments for doing stupid things to make your stock go up:

1. Financial: High stock price = cheap financing

2. Fiduciary: Happy shareholders = job security

3. Philosophical: If shareholders want a CEO who tweets memes instead of profits, who are we to judge?

Think of it like a restaurant. Sure, you could focus on making great food. But if your customers are mostly there to take selfies with your rainbow-coloured "unicorn burger," maybe that's actually your business model? A satisfied customer is a satisfied customer, even if their satisfaction comes from Instagram likes rather than culinary excellence.

Enter Palantir, which just announced it's moving from the NYSE to the Nasdaq. The boring corporate reason? "Upon transferring, Palantir anticipates meeting the eligibility requirements of the Nasdaq-100 Index."

Translation: "Index funds will have to buy our stock and number go up."

But then! Oh then! Board member Alex Moore tweeted (and quickly deleted) the most gloriously honest explanation of corporate strategy I've ever seen:

"We are moving @PalantirTech to Nasdaq because it will force billions in ETF buying and deliver 'tendies' to our retail investors. Player haters be aware that we've been hated for decades (plural). Everything we do is to reward and support our retail diamondhands following."

This is like a Michelin-starred chef announcing "We're adding food coloring to everything because it gets more likes on TikTok." It might be true, but you're not supposed to say it out loud, and you're definitely not supposed to say it in meme-speak.

The really fun part? This is probably the most honest anyone has ever been about corporate strategy. Most companies are absolutely doing things to juice their stock price – they just dress it up in corporate buzzwords about "maximizing shareholder value through strategic initiatives."

The correct corporate approach seems to be:

• DO: Move to Nasdaq for the index fund buying

• DON'T: Tweet about "tendies" and "diamondhands"

• DEFINITELY DON'T: Admit everything you do is for the stock price

• ABSOLUTELY DO: Delete tweet and pretend it never happened

It's like Fight Club: The first rule of boosting your stock price is you don't talk about boosting your stock price. The second rule is you DEFINITELY don't talk about it using Reddit terminology.

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Past performance of deleted tweets is not indicative of future tendies. No diamondhands were paper-handed in the writing of this newsletter.