Palantir CEO Alex Karp slammed short sellers in an interview on CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Tuesday.
"These people claim to be ethical, they are actually shorting one of the best businesses in the world," he said. "Pick something that is not doing a noble task."
His comments come after a Monday filing revealed Michael Burry, the investor of "The Big Short" fame who predicted and profited from the collapse of the mid-2000s housing bubble, bet big against the software company last quarter.
Palantir reported strong third-quarter results on Monday, outperforming Wall Street's estimates with a 63% increase in revenue to nearly $1.2 billion.
However, the AI data-analytics company saw its share price drop sharply in early trading on Tuesday, falling more than 9% at its lowest point.
"This behavior is egregious, and I am going to be dancing around when it's proven wrong," Karp said about short sellers targeting his company, adding that people betting on Palantir to disappoint is "crazy motivating" for his team.
"We are just tripling down on getting the better numbers to make them poorer," he said.
Burry's hedge fund, Scion Asset Management, purchased bearish put options on Palantir and Nvidia shares, despite both companies growing rapidly and issuing bullish forecasts.
Commenting on Burry's position, Karp said: "The two companies he's shorting are the ones making all the money, which is super weird.
"The idea that chips and Ontology is what you want to short is batshit crazy," he added, referring to one of Palantir's key offerings, which organizes and visualizes an organization's data.
