Wu-Tang Clan Member Raekwon Is a Palantir ‘OG,’ Visiting Headquarters 16 Years After Receiving His Custom PLTR Jacket

When hip-hop icon and Wu-Tang founder Raekwon the Chef marched into the headquarters of Palantir (PLTR) in 2010, he stumbled upon a company that most of us had never heard of.

At that stage, Palantir was just another private Silicon Valley startup. It had a couple hundred employees, a relatively humble valuation of $735 million, and got most of its business through boring government contracts.

Leave it to an enterprising rapper to see something that Wall Street couldn't. Raekwon immediately started singing the company's praises and repping a custom Palantir jacket in his music videos. Everybody knows what's happened to the company since.

Well, CEO Alex Karp welcomed the Wu-Tang member back to Palantir's headquarters this month like a prodigal son. The company blasted the visit all over its socials, calling Raekwon one of its "OGs." The rapper has never actually disclosed whether he put his money where his mouth is and became an early investor, but nobody can deny Raekwon was definitely one of the company's earliest A-list cheerleaders.

What's more, this bizarre turn of events serves as an important reminder that hip hop seems to have an incredible track record on Wall Street. So, why are rappers able to spot glimmers of gold years before institutional investors hop on the bandwagon?

Raekwon Saw Palantir Before Wall Street Did

This particular relationship between the New York rapper and one of AI's biggest companies began in August 2010. After getting shown around the company's headquarters (nobody's sure why he was invited), Raekwon took to X and told his followers, "if u don't know bout them, google them!"

You've got to admit, this is a pretty weird celebrity endorsement for what was then a small defense software company.

Before the rapper's post, Palantir had just completed a funding round that valued the company at about $735 million. The company only had 250 engineers, and it was bending over backwards to try and convince investors it was capable of becoming a major enterprise business.

Maybe that's why the company was so keen to welcome a celebrity and shower them with free merch. Raekwon has since been seen wearing his Palantir jacket everywhere. It's even appeared in music videos.