Anthropic’s Claude rises to No. 1 in the App Store following Pentagon dispute

Anthropic’s chatbot Claude seems to have benefited from the attention around the company’s fraught negotiations with the Pentagon.

As first reported by CNBC, Claude has been rising to the top of the free app rankings in Apple’s US App Store. On Saturday evening, it overtook OpenAI’s ChatGPT to claim the number one spot, a position that it still held on Sunday morning.

According to data from SensorTower, Claude was just outside the top 100 at the end of January, and has spent most of February somewhere in the top 20. It’s climbed rapidly in the past few days, from sixth on Wednesday, to fourth on Thursday, then first on Saturday.

A company spokesperson said that daily signups have broken the all-time record every day this week, free users have increased more than 60% since January, and paid subscribers have more than doubled this year.

After Anthropic attempted to negotiate for safeguards preventing the Department of Defense from using its AI models for mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons, President Donald Trump directed federal agencies to stop using all Anthropic products and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said he’s designating the company a supply-chain threat.

OpenAI subsequently announced its own agreement with the Pentagon, which CEO Sam Altman claimed includes safeguards related to domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons.

This post was first published on February 28, 2026. It has been updated to reflect Anthropic reaching No. 1, and to include growth numbers from the company.