Anthropic’s business growth persists despite regulatory friction

Anthropic surpassed OpenAI in market share of business spending in May, even as the Trump administration renewed its war on the model maker. According to data from business spending platform Ramp, Anthropic’s share of AI subscriptions paid for by businesses rose 2.5 percentage points in May. The company’s growth is highlighted by the following market share breakdown:

• Anthropic: 41% of business AI subscriptions
• OpenAI: 39.5% of business AI subscriptions

At the end of May, Anthropic raised $65 billion at a $965 billion valuation. Following this, in June, the company reportedly filed confidential paperwork for an IPO.

This business growth comes despite regulatory friction in the US. On Friday, the Trump administration sent a letter demanding Anthropic ban non-Americans from accessing its Mythos 5 and Fable 5 models. The administration invoked an export control directive—a regulatory order restricting technology access—to demand the ban. This action follows a March decision where the Trump administration declared Anthropic a supply-chain risk, which is a government designation for security concerns. The regulatory pressure forced Anthropic to pull Mythos 5 and Fable 5 from the market. Previously, Anthropic had marketed it as dangerous due to its capabilities.

However, the controversy may actually be helping Anthropic’s business. Ramp’s data, compiled from more than 70,000 businesses using the platform, shows that customers continue to use Anthropic’s available Opus models. In about one-third of transactions where model details are visible, businesses are spending on various versions of Claude Opus. Beyond subscriptions, companies spend on API calls for tools like Claude Code. Ara Kharazian, Ramp’s lead economist, suggests that the feud with the Trump administration may help Anthropic’s business. “Anthropic’s best month on record, as far as business adoption, was the month that the Department of Defense labeled them a supply-chain risk. There’s a lot of aura that comes with your model specifically being named too dangerous to use,” Kharazian said.

Why it matters

Despite the Trump administration’s efforts to restrict Anthropic’s models due to security concerns, sales data suggests that these controversies may actually be increasing the company’s business adoption and market share.