ChatGPT Uninstalls Surge 295% After Pentagon Deal as Claude Downloads Soar
App data showed a dramatic consumer backlash against OpenAI's DoD partnership, with Claude briefly surpassing ChatGPT as the top U.S. App Store download.
U.S. uninstalls of ChatGPT's mobile app jumped 295% day-over-day on Saturday, February 28, according to market intelligence firm Sensor Tower, as consumers responded to news of OpenAI's deal with the Department of Defense. The surge dwarfed ChatGPT's typical day-over-day uninstall rate of roughly 9%, measured over the preceding 30 days.
The backlash was swift and multi-channel. One-star reviews for ChatGPT in app stores surged 775% on Saturday, then grew another 100% on Sunday.
Five-star reviews fell by 50% over the same period. ChatGPT's U.S. downloads fell 13% day-over-day on Saturday following the announcement, and an additional 5% on Sunday — reversing a 14% growth spike recorded the day before the deal became public.
Anthropic, which had publicly refused to partner with the Pentagon over concerns about autonomous weapons and domestic surveillance, was the immediate beneficiary. Claude's U.S. downloads jumped 37% on Friday and 51% on Saturday, according to Sensor Tower, with third-party provider Appfigures recording an 88% surge.
Claude briefly surpassed ChatGPT's total daily U.S. downloads for the first time ever on Saturday and hit the top spot on the U.S. App Store. Similarweb estimated Claude's U.S. downloads were running at roughly 20 times their January levels by the following week.
Despite the backlash, ChatGPT retained a massive user base, with Sensor Tower counting approximately 250.5 million daily active mobile users globally. Analysts noted that consumer sentiment, however vocal on app stores, rarely translates directly to sustained enterprise churn — but the episode signaled new risks for AI companies perceived as too close to government military applications.
Read the original reporting at TechCrunch.
