QuitGPT Campaign Protests Outside OpenAI HQ in San Francisco

Rally Comes as ChatGPT Uninstalls Surge 295% and Claude Downloads Hit All-Time High

On Tuesday, March 3, 2026, members of QuitGPT, a grassroots boycott campaign with over 2.5 million supporters, gathered outside OpenAI’s San Francisco headquarters to protest the company’s deal with the U.S. Department of Defense to deploy AI for autonomous weapons systems and mass surveillance of American citizens.

The protest happened amid a dramatic consumer backlash. According to market intelligence provider Sensor Tower, U.S. uninstalls of the ChatGPT mobile app jumped 295% day-over-day on Saturday, February 28, compared to a typical daily uninstall rate of just 9%. One-star reviews for the app surged 775% on the same day, and U.S. downloads of ChatGPT fell 13% day-over-day. The reaction represents one of the sharpest single-day consumer revolts against a major tech platform in recent memory.

The decision stands in stark contrast to that of competitor Anthropic, which declined a similar request from the Department of War last week, citing concerns that AI would be used to surveil American citizens and to operate in fully autonomous weapons systems that AI is not yet safe to control. The public response was swift: Anthropic’s Claude app saw downloads surge 37% day-over-day on Friday, February 27, and a further 51% on Saturday. Claude climbed to the No. 1 spot on the U.S. App Store by Saturday — a rise of over 20 ranks in under a week. Data provider Appfigures noted that Claude’s total daily U.S. downloads surpassed ChatGPT’s for the first time ever.

“OpenAI had a choice, and they chose contracts over conscience,” said a QuitGPT organizer. “When over 1 million people join a boycott and consumers deleting apps by the hundreds of thousands, the message is clear: the public will not accept AI being weaponized against them. We’re here today to make that unmistakably clear.”

QuitGPT is calling on the public to cancel their OpenAI subscriptions and take a pledge at quitgpt.org. The organization has managed to get over 1.5 million people to engage on their demand through a sustained campaign for corporate accountability in the AI industry.