I think it's fair to say that a large portion of their valuation comes from their political ties lending an air of invincibility. If Palantir came under scrutiny it's guaranteed that neither JD Vance nor anyone else Thiel could mobilize would remain silent and let it happen.

They ARE a consulting firm masquerading as SaaS.

They happen to have a SaaS product, but you cannot use it without paying up front for huge amounts of pro services. The SaaS product doesn’t work on its own. This isn’t necessarily bad, but it’s not magic software either.

They’re not consultants, they’re forward deployed engineers!!