ChatGPT returns to the top of the App Store after DoD deal controversy

Source: 9to5Mac

OpenAI’s recent contract with the U.S. Department of Defense sparked backlash from users, briefly pushing Claude to the top of the App Store. Here are the details.

Claude had reached the top of the App Store on March 1st

If you’ve been following the standoff between Anthropic and the U.S. government, you know that Anthropic was designated a supply chain risk after refusing to accept two clauses in a multi‑million‑dollar contract with the Department of Defense.

On the same day the Pentagon’s deadline for Anthropic to accept the terms expired, OpenAI swooped in and signed the contract instead.

Even though OpenAI claimed to have secured the safeguards Anthropic wanted but failed to obtain from the DoD, this quickly sparked backlash among users, many of whom uninstalled ChatGPT.

In a matter of days, ChatGPT uninstalls reportedly grew by 295%, while Claude reached the top of the U.S. App Store for the first time on March 1st.

The backlash, however, was short‑lived. Earlier today, ChatGPT reclaimed the top spot on the U.S. App Store, followed by Claude in second place and Google Gemini in third.

The LLM war heats up

This controversy couldn’t have come at a worse time for OpenAI, as its once‑comfortable lead in the LLM market has shrunk considerably over the past year.

According to a report published last month by Apptopia, ChatGPT’s share of daily U.S. users fell from 69.1 % in January 2025 to 45.3 % in January 2026. During the same period, Google’s Gemini grew from 14.7 % to 25.1 %.

Apptopia’s report landed around the same time Alphabet revealed that Gemini had climbed to 750 million monthly active users, up from 650 million in November.

OpenAI, by contrast, confirmed late last month that it had reached 900 million weekly active users in a blog post where it also said it had crossed 50 million subscribers.

That, in turn, came after Sensor Tower noted that while Gemini had seen a 30 % increase in MAUs between August and November, ChatGPT’s growth had risen by just 5 %.

Anthropic, meanwhile, spent the past few years focused primarily on enterprise and developer markets, as well as on multiple studies and reports that helped position it as a responsibility reference for the AI market.

Following Anthropic’s Super Bowl campaign, which leaned into OpenAI’s decision to introduce ads in ChatGPT, the company also saw a surge of interest from everyday users, breaking into the US App Store’s Top 10 for the first time on February 13th.

Then came the Pentagon dispute, which is still reverberating. As promised, the company is suing to block its designation as a supply chain risk and has already seen support from more than 30 industry staffers, who filed an amicus brief on its behalf earlier today.

Be it as it may, even though ChatGPT is back at the top of the App Store, the last few days have helped position Claude as a viable alternative alongside Google Gemini.

Whether Anthropic will play its cards right to try to keep the momentum remains to be seen.