The spike followed headlines about Anthropic’s refusal to allow its Claude models to support mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons|RyanDonegan|CC BY 2.0
Anthropic’s Claude AI app briefly surged to No. 1 among free US apps on the App Store Saturday, just one day after President Donald Trump criticized the company.
Trump had sought to block government agencies from adopting its technology.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT ranked No. 2 and counts over 900 million weekly users.
Claude’s popularity spike followed headlines about Anthropic’s refusal to allow its models to support mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth asked that Anthropic be labeled as a supply chain risk, which would bar defense contractors from using its tools. CEO Dario Amodei urged reconsideration, citing the value Claude provides to the armed forces.
Anthropic said free users jumped over 60% since January, while paying subscribers more than doubled this year. Singer Katy Perry also boosted visibility with a Pro subscription post.