Feinberg memo steers $244M to Palantir with no program details
A draft directive ordering the services to fund Palantir through 2028 raises the question of when "planning guidance" becomes a sole-source bypass in practice.
TL;DR
Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg directed the Pentagon's acquisition chief and comptroller to spend up to $244 million on Palantir through March 2027, with armed services told to find additional funds through December 2028. The Aug. 4 memo, obtained by Federal News Network, names no specific programs or contracts the money would support. A DoD official characterized it as routine planning guidance under Feinberg's BOND initiative, but the department didn't say how many similar memos exist or for which companies. POGO's Greg Williams flagged the absence of any reference to competition requirements.
The memo is short on specifics, and that's the point that lands hardest. Feinberg's Aug. 4 directive tells the Pentagon comptroller and acquisition chief to spend up to $244 million on Palantir through March 2027 without naming which programs, which contracts, or which deliverables the money buys. The armed forces are told to line up additional funding from April 2027 through December 2028. That's two and a half years of directed spend with no public description of what's being acquired.
The Department's defense is that this is standard planning guidance under BOND, Business Operators for National Defense, the industry-engagement initiative Feinberg launched in February to embed private-sector leaders in acquisition reform. A DoD official told FNN the department "routinely issues similar funding and planning memos across a wide range of our industry partners." But the official wouldn't say how many similar memos exist or which other companies received them.
That's the asymmetry. If this really is routine, the department could say so with numbers. If it isn't, the memo looks like a sole-source commitment dressed as planning guidance, a workaround that skips the competition requirements baked into the Federal Acquisition Regulation. Greg Williams at POGO put it plainly: the memo expresses intent to sole-source "without any reference to the need to comply with requirements for competition."
The backdrop: Palantir has been a favored DoD vendor for years, most visibly through the Maven Smart System and the Army's data-management contract worth up to $10 billion over 10 years. Warp Speed, Palantir's supply-chain analytics platform, has been adopted by Boeing and L3Harris. The operational need is real, Iran operations have depleted munitions stockpiles, and the industrial base needs to move faster. But that need doesn't explain why the funding directive names one company and no programs.
Published ·Deep Fathom