US Bans Claude from Government — and AI Becomes the Most Downloaded App in the Country
The Trump administration banned the use of Claude — Anthropic's AI — in federal agencies and the Pentagon after the company refused to remove security barriers that would prevent the technology from being used in autonomous weapons and mass surveillance. The side effect was unexpected: Claude became the most downloaded app in the US.
TECHNOLOGYBUSINESS AND ECONOMICS
Thiago Regis
3/27/20262 min read
The story began in February when negotiations between the Pentagon and Anthropic collapsed. The company refused to remove the safety barriers that prevent Claude from being used in fully autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance. The government's response was immediate and unprecedented: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth designated Anthropic as a "national security supply chain risk"—a designation historically only applied to foreign companies—and Trump ordered federal agencies to immediately cease using Claude.
The internal impact was chaotic: at the Department of Health (HHS), thousands of employees had only a few hours to salvage conversations and programming projects. Employees lost entire jobs, with Claude being abruptly deactivated while projects were still underway.
But the reverse effect on the streets was surprising. The American public, largely unaware of the company's existence, rushed to download the app. Claude has become the most downloaded iPhone app in the US, and enterprise subscriptions have quadrupled since the beginning of 2026.
The legal battle reached the courts this Tuesday (24): federal judge Rita Lin questioned whether the Pentagon was trying to "paralyze" Anthropic as punishment for its public criticism of the government, and signaled that a decision on the injunction that would suspend the ban would be issued in the coming days. The ACLU and Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren have already publicly defended Anthropic, classifying the Pentagon's action as an attempt to coerce private companies into providing tools for spying on American citizens.
Key points:
The Pentagon claims to have 180 days to completely remove Claude from its systems and requires defense vendors — including Amazon, Microsoft and Palantir — to certify that they do not use Claude in military work. The Department of Defense has already begun replacing Claude with OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Gemini and xAI's Grok.
Anthropic was on track to surpass OpenAI in revenue by the end of 2026, with estimates pointing to annualized revenue of $2.5 billion in February — growth driven especially by Claude Code, a programming tool that generated over $1 billion in annualized revenue alone in 2025.
Anthropic filed two lawsuits against the government on March 9: one requesting a review of the supply chain risk designation and another alleging a violation of the First Amendment — the right to freedom of speech — arguing that the company is being punished for publicly opposing the irresponsible use of AI.
Claude banned United States Pentagon, Anthropic vs Trump government AI, Claude app most downloaded USA 2026, Anthropic lawsuit freedom of speech, AI autonomous weapons national security
LEIA TAMBÉM
Siga-nos
© 2025 - 2026 All rights reserved.