This image shows the Claude AI app in a mobile phone’s app store on February 16, 2026 in New York City. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the Pentagon used Anthropic’s Claude Eye through a contract with Palantir to support the attack on Venezuela and capture former President Nicolas Maduro.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images
Anthropic’s Claude artificial intelligence assistant app jumped to No. 1 on Apple’s list of top free apps in the U.S. late Saturday, a day after the Trump administration sought to block government agencies from adopting the company’s technology.
The rise in popularity suggests that Anthropic is benefiting from its presence in the headlines as it refuses to use its models for domestic mass surveillance or fully autonomous weapons.
“The left-wing lunatics at Anthropic made a disastrous mistake in trying to superpower the Department of the Army and force it to follow the Terms of Service instead of the Constitution,” President Donald Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social on Friday.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said he called for Anthropic’s tools to be blocked from access to U.S. defense contractors, considering the company a supply chain risk to national security.
“It is the ministry’s prerogative to select the contractor that best aligns with its vision,” Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said in a statement. “But given the tremendous value that Anthropic’s technology brings to our nation’s military, we hope they reconsider.”
Historically, other AI chat apps have been more popular among consumers than Claude. OpenAI’s ChatGPT ranked No. 2 in the App Store rankings on Saturday. Google Gemini was in 4th place.
The Claude iOS app is gaining momentum this month. It ranked 131st in the U.S. on Jan. 30, and bounced around the top 20 for much of February, according to data from analytics firm Sensor Tower. According to the data, ChatGPT held the number one spot for most of February.
Anthropic’s number of free users has increased more than 60% since January, daily sign-ups have tripled since November, and the company set new records each day this week, a spokesperson said in an email. According to a spokesperson, the number of paying members has more than doubled this year.
Founded in 2021 by former OpenAI employees, Anthropic has gained momentum over the past year as a coding and enterprise model supplier. OpenAI, which currently has more than 900 million weekly users on ChatGPT, is responding to the surge in Anthropic’s business by partnering with consulting firms like Accenture and Capgemini.
On Friday night, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the company had reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of Defense to deploy the model.
Hours later, pop singer Katy Perry posted a screenshot of Anthropic’s consumer Pro subscription with overlapping hearts.
clock: Second Pete Hegseth directs Department of Defense to designate anthropogenic supply chain risks
