Anthropic may have fallen behind in doing business with the US government, but it has gained enough popularity to take the number one spot on the App Store’s Top Free Apps leaderboard. At the top, the cloud beat out both ChatGate and Google Gemini, which rank second and third respectively on Apple’s free apps chart.
The sudden increase in user downloads is not accidental. The news follows President Trump blocking any federal agencies from using Anthropic’s cloud or other AI tools after the AI company refused to agree to certain guardrails. Anthropic was even threatened with a “supply-chain risk” label by Department of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after refusing to allow its AI models to be used for mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. The public controversy led to a wave of user support that ultimately allowed the cloud to depose OpenAI’s ChatGPT as the most downloaded free app on the App Store.
While OpenAI has stepped into Anthropic’s shoes after agreeing to a settlement with the Defense Department, the CEO still offered some thoughts about the debacle during an AMA on X. Although cloud is a competitive model, Sam Altman said Anthropic’s supply-chain risk designation was “a very bad decision” and he expects that to be reversed. Additionally, OpenAI’s CEO called Anthropic’s blacklisting “an extremely scary precedent” but he is “still hopeful for a better solution.”
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