Anthropic's Claude AI platform experienced a series of technical disruptions on Monday, rattling users already drawn to the service amid a politically charged week for the San Francisco-based AI startup.
What Went Down - And When
According to Claude's official status page, the first incident began at 11:49 UTC on Monday, when the company investigated elevated errors across claude.ai, its developer console, and Claude Code. Updates noted that some API methods were not working until a fix was implemented, and the issue was resolved at 15:47 UTC.
A second incident affecting Claude Opus 4.6 was logged at 14:35 UTC, fixed by 14:42 UTC, and resolved at 15:50 UTC.
A third wave occurred, with elevated errors on Claude Opus 4.6 and claude.ai starting around 16:50-17:08 UTC.
Downdetector recorded 1,952 Claude AI problem reports from U.S. users in the 24-hour window, underlining the breadth of disruptions felt at the consumer level.
Pentagon Drama Fuels Curious Surge
The outages come at a particularly turbulent moment. On Saturday, Claude climbed to the No. 1 spot on Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) App Store free apps chart in the U.S.
Other AI apps, including OpenAI's ChatGPT and Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL)-owned Google's Gemini, ranked second and fourth, respectively, on the App Store.
The surge followed the Trump administration's order for federal agencies to stop using Anthropic's technology, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth labeling the company a supply-chain risk.
Military Ties Remain Despite Ban
Despite the political heat, Claude's reach inside government hasn't fully unwound. According to The Wall Street Journal, U.S. Central Command continued to rely on the AI system during a major air campaign against Iran mere hours after the presidential ban was announced, using it to assist with intelligence analysis, target identification, and battlefield simulations.
The White House and Anthropic have been locked in a months-long dispute over the potential military use of the company's AI systems. On Friday, Trump directed federal agencies to halt collaboration with Anthropic, and the Defense Department labeled the firm a security concern and a potential supply chain risk.