President Trump Sells Palantir Stock and Buys an AI Stock Up 2,100% Since 2023

Trump’s accounts reportedly made 3,642 trades in Q1, selling Palantir shares for $854K-$4.6M while buying Western Digital for $45K-$150K. Palantir’s Q1 results showed revenue up 85% to $1.6B and non-GAAP EPS up 153% to $0.33, but the stock is still flagged as expensive at ~140x adjusted earnings. Western Digital posted Q3 fiscal 2026 revenue up 45% to $3.3B and non-GAAP EPS up 97% to $2.72, supported by AI-driven data growth and a stated strategy to avoid capacity additions; valuation is described as relatively cheaper at ~66x earnings.

Analysis

The actionable signal is not the political disclosure; it’s the market’s continued mispricing of AI as a single trade. PLTR sits in the part of the stack where expectations are already extreme, so even strong execution can fail to move the multiple if growth merely normalizes; at ~140x earnings, the stock is highly sensitive to any deceleration in commercial seat expansion or government budget timing. Competitively, PLTR also faces a widening moat test from data-platform incumbents and cloud vendors that can bundle AI features cheaper, which makes its valuation vulnerable over the next 1-3 quarters.

WDC is a different animal: it is a second-order AI beneficiary with a much cleaner supply-side setup. The real edge is oligopoly discipline, not just AI demand; if WDC and STX keep capacity tight, incremental demand converts into pricing power and margin expansion, which is why the stock can work even if AI capex growth cools modestly. The risk is cyclical: if one producer blinks and adds wafers/heads, or if hyperscalers re-optimize storage tiers away from HDD toward lower-cost cloud archival alternatives, the thesis can unwind quickly.

Contrarian view: the consensus underestimates how much of the “AI storage” story is about data retention, not training, which supports HDD demand longer than the market expects. But it may also be overpaying for PLTR’s scarcity premium while underappreciating that WDC has the more durable operating leverage if supply stays constrained. The near-term falsifier for WDC is any sign of ASP compression or capacity commentary from STX; for PLTR, it’s any guide that implies growth slips below the current hypergrowth narrative despite continued enthusiasm.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Initiate a 3-6 month pair trade: long WDC / short PLTR, sized market-neutral; target 15-25% relative outperformance as valuation mean reversion closes the gap between a cyclical oligopoly and an expensive software compounder.
• Accumulate WDC on market weakness over the next 1-2 weeks, ideally on any AI-basket selloff; risk/reward improves if the market gives back recent gains before the next earnings print.
• Do not chase PLTR here; if already long, trim into strength or finance exposure with covered calls into the next earnings cycle. The thesis breaks only if revenue growth and margin expansion remain unusually strong for another 2-3 quarters.
• Set an alert on STX commentary and HDD pricing data for the next earnings season; if either suggests capacity discipline is breaking, reduce WDC exposure immediately.