Anthropic surpassed OpenAI in business AI spending for the first time in May, and a Trump administration ban on its latest models may paradoxically strengthen its market position.

What happened: Anthropic's share of AI subscriptions paid for by businesses rose 2.5 percentage points in May to 41%, surpassing OpenAI's 39.5%. The Trump administration then demanded Anthropic ban non-Americans from accessing its newest models (Mythos 5 and Fable 5), forcing the company to pull them from the market after just a few days.

Why it matters: Anthropic's business adoption has grown despite—and possibly because of—prior government friction. In March, the Trump administration declared Anthropic a supply-chain risk after the company refused to allow the government to use its models for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons. Ramp's lead economist noted that Anthropic's best month for business adoption was the month the Department of Defense labeled them dangerous, suggesting regulatory scrutiny may lend credibility in the eyes of cautious corporate buyers.

What to watch: Anthropic raised $65 billion（約10兆円） at a $965 billion（約150兆円） valuation at the end of May and filed confidential paperwork for an IPO on the strength of its first-ever profitable quarter. Businesses are primarily spending on Claude Opus models (the predecessor to Mythos), which remain available, so the impact of the latest ban on revenue remains unclear from current data.