Anthropic's Claude sees 'elevated errors' as it tops Apple's free apps after Pentagon clash

On Monday, Anthropic's Claude AI models experienced notable performance issues, marked by what the company described as "elevated errors." Despite these setbacks, Claude managed to maintain its position as the top free app on Apple's App Store. According to updates from Claude's status page, the latest model, Claude Opus 4.6, released just last month, was exhibiting "degraded performance". At 9:42 a.m. ET, the status page confirmed that the problem had been identified and that a solution was in progress. The app's surge in popularity can be attributed to recent developments involving the U.S. Defense Department, which raised concerns about the use of Anthropic's technology. Following a directive from President Donald Trump, all government agencies were instructed to "immediately cease" utilizing Anthropic's services. In a swift response, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth took to X to announce that the Pentagon would classify the company as a "supply-chain risk to national security."