ChatGPT Lost 295% More Users After DoD Deal. Claude Hit No. 1 Instead.
The numbers don’t lie. When OpenAI announced its partnership with the Department of Defense, users responded fast and they responded loudly.
On Saturday, February 28, ChatGPT mobile app uninstalls jumped 295% day-over-day in the U.S. That’s not a typo. For context, the app’s typical day-over-day uninstall rate sits around 9%, measured over the previous 30 days. So this was a dramatic spike by any measure.
Meanwhile, the biggest winner from all this chaos was Anthropic’s Claude.
Claude’s U.S. App Store Rankings Shot to No. 1
While ChatGPT was hemorrhaging users, Claude was pulling them in. U.S. downloads for Claude jumped 37% day-over-day on Friday, February 27, then climbed another 51% on Saturday after Anthropic publicly announced it would not partner with the DoD.
That surge pushed Claude all the way to the No. 1 spot on the U.S. App Store by Saturday. It’s been sitting there ever since, as of Monday, March 2. That represents a jump of more than 20 ranks compared with just a week earlier, around February 22.
Third-party data provider Appfigures confirmed the shift, noting that Claude’s total daily U.S. downloads on Saturday surpassed ChatGPT’s for the first time ever. Appfigures also clocked Claude’s download increase even higher than Sensor Tower did, estimating an 88% day-over-day jump on Saturday.
Beyond the U.S., Claude hit No. 1 on the free iPhone chart in six other countries, including Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Belgium, and Luxembourg.
Why Users Reacted So Strongly
Anthropic’s decision to walk away from the DoD deal clearly resonated with a portion of the AI user base. The company said it couldn’t agree to the deal’s terms because of concerns that AI would be used to surveil American citizens and deployed in fully autonomous weaponry. Anthropic publicly stated that AI simply isn’t ready to make those kinds of decisions safely.
That stance drew an audience. And it shows in the data.
ChatGPT’s download growth was also directly impacted. Downloads dropped 13% day-over-day on Saturday, shortly after the DoD partnership news went public. They fell another 5% on Sunday. For comparison, the app had seen 14% download growth the Friday before the announcement dropped.
The 1-Star Review Flood Tells the Whole Story
Beyond uninstalls and downloads, users went straight to the App Store to express themselves. One-star reviews for ChatGPT surged 775% on Saturday alone, according to Sensor Tower. Then they grew another 100% day-over-day on Sunday.
Five-star reviews moved in the opposite direction, dropping 50% during the same window.
That kind of rating activity is rare. It signals real emotional investment from users who felt strongly enough about OpenAI’s business decision to spend time writing negative reviews, not just deleting the app.
What This Data Actually Means
A few important caveats here. Similarweb noted that Claude’s U.S. downloads over the past week were roughly 20 times what they were in January. But it cautioned that factors beyond political sentiment could be driving some of that growth, so it’s worth keeping perspective.
Still, the timeline is hard to ignore. The correlation between Anthropic’s DoD refusal, OpenAI’s DoD acceptance, and the subsequent user movement is clear. Whatever else may be contributing to Claude’s momentum, the weekend of February 28 was a genuine inflection point.
For OpenAI, the short-term data is rough. A 295% uninstall spike, a 13% download drop, and a 775% surge in one-star reviews all in the same 48-hour window is a rough weekend by any standard. Whether these numbers signal a longer-term shift in user loyalty, or simply a vocal but temporary reaction, is the real question now.
The AI assistant market has never been more competitive. And it just got more interesting.
