Palantir Technologies Inc’s PLTR Alex Karp emerged as the top of the most affluent U.S. tech company bosses as the big data analytics company noted a surge in its market cap.

The Denver-based company saw its stock surge 216% in the last 12 months.

Karp’s Palantir holdings surged to $12.8 billion from $2.2 billion in 2024 beginning, AFR.com cited VerityData.

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Karp adopted a new Rule 10b5-1 trading plan, allowing him to sell up to 9.98 million shares by Sept. 12, potentially worth $1.23 billion at current prices.

The group, which Peter Thiel chairs, surged after Donald Trump won the U.S. election in November 2024, reaching a peak market capitalization of about $232 billion. In the last month, it lost value mainly due to fears about a shrinking US defense budget and broader market jitters.

Palantir will soon be part of the S&P 100 index and S&P Dow Jones Indices. Since Trump’s election victory, it has emerged as the top-performing S&P 500 stock.

Market analysts associated Palantir’s rise to artificial intelligence capabilities with Karp’s support for government efficiency initiatives.

Apple Inc’s AAPL Tim Cook, Alphabet Inc‘s GOOG GOOGL Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Amazon.com Inc’s AMZN Andy Jassy and Microsoft Corp’s MSFT Satya Nadella have each sold between $30 million-$80 million of stock in their respective companies since the start of 2024. Karp’s earnings were more than eight times the combined earnings of the four big tech chiefs.

Recently, Palantir delivered AI-powered mobile battle stations to the US Army under a $178 million deal.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives compared buying Palantir stock to that of Tesla Inc TSLA stock in 2015.

Price Action: Palantir stock is up 4.7% at $81.72 premarket at last check Wednesday.

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