TL;DR

Anthropic’s Claude became the top free app in the US after the Pentagon designated the company a supply-chain risk. The dispute centres on CEO Dario Amodei’s refusal to allow Claude for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons. OpenAI stepped in to take the Pentagon contract.

Public backing for Anthropic’s stance

Claude shot to the top of Apple’s US free app chart on Saturday, overtaking ChatGPT just one day after the Pentagon awarded OpenAI a contract for classified military networks. The app also climbed UK iPhone charts, though ChatGPT held its lead there, according to Sensor Tower data.

The surge in demand hit hard. Anthropic reported outages early Monday, with over 1,400 users flagging disruptions on Downdetector. The company described “unprecedented demand for Claude” and confirmed record daily sign-ups throughout the week.

The Pentagon dispute

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth labelled Anthropic a supply-chain risk after CEO Dario Amodei refused to drop red lines around mass surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. Amodei has argued that current AI models are not reliable enough for these applications and that mass surveillance breaches constitutional rights.

Donald Trump weighed in on Truth Social, accusing Anthropic of trying to “strong-arm” the Pentagon. The administration then turned to OpenAI, which struck a deal hours after talks with Anthropic collapsed.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the military would not use ChatGPT for autonomous killing systems or mass surveillance — the same safeguards Anthropic had insisted on. AI researchers, lawyers and tech workers questioned why the government abandoned Anthropic only to accept identical terms from OpenAI.

Users vote with their feet

Public figures including pop singer Katy Perry announced their switch to Claude on social media, urging others to cancel ChatGPT subscriptions. Anthropic reported free active users had grown more than 60% this year, with daily sign-ups quadrupling and paid subscribers more than doubling.

Looking forward

The standoff has turned an ethics dispute into a consumer brand moment. Anthropic’s willingness to walk away from a Pentagon contract appears to have accelerated its user growth — though the long-term commercial impact of losing US government business remains an open question. For the broader AI industry, the episode raises whether safety commitments can function as competitive advantages rather than liabilities.