Claude is the top free app on iPhone right now, and the Pentagon drama is basically why

Lose some, win some

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Ripple effect: Anthropic has been all over the news lately for refusing to let the US military use its technology for autonomous weapons and surveillance. That decision may have cost the company a major deal and, potentially, hundreds of millions of dollars. Some of those losses may now be offset, however, as Claude – the company's AI chatbot – has climbed to number one on Apple's App Store. In the process, it has even dethroned ChatGPT.

That happened late on Saturday, February 28, and as of this writing, Claude is still holding the top spot. ChatGPT has slipped to second place, with Google's Gemini trailing in third. It's a remarkable rise for an app that wasn't even in the top 100 back in January.

As for what's driving the surge, it turns out that a very public fight with the Pentagon can do wonders for download numbers. As noted above, Anthropic walked away from a deal with the Department of Defense after failing to secure assurances that its models would not be used for fully autonomous weapons or mass domestic surveillance.

The DoD was obviously not thrilled about that. In fact, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth went as far as pushing to label Anthropic a "supply-chain risk" to national security. Even Sam Altman weighed in during an AMA on X, calling the designation "a very bad decision" and "an extremely scary precedent" – a notable comment to make about a direct rival.

Following Hegseth's move, President Trump escalated the situation by ordering federal agencies to stop using Anthropic's tools altogether. He also took to Truth Social to describe the company as "leftwing nut jobs" who made a "disastrous mistake."

Yet instead of scaring users away, the controversy appears to have had the opposite effect. Downloads of Claude surged, and a "cancel ChatGPT" trend gained traction across Reddit and other social platforms. OpenAI had stepped in to replace Anthropic on the defense contract, and many ChatGPT users weren't happy about that.

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Anthropic has backed the uptick with its own data, saying free signups have jumped more than 60% since January. Meanwhile, paid subscribers have doubled over the past year. The company also ran a Super Bowl ad, mocking OpenAI for introducing ads to ChatGPT. That probably didn't hurt either.

That said, despite Trump's directive, Claude is reportedly still in use at several government agencies, including US Central Command. A complete transition to GPT, if it happens at all, could take time.