only 20 chapters deep in this series so i dont know any of Claude's motivations, but dude's actions make a lot more sense if you view him as having some vaguely autistic-like mental disorder.
he can't read cues, avoids others, has mood swings that change on a dime, has difficulty expressing his emotions, etc etc.
honestly just from looking at the webmd page for autism i keep seeing more and more symptoms that line up.
im sure Claude is gonna have some emotionally charged backstory about his neglect filled upbringing that transformed him into this cold robotic psychopath but from where im at right now all i can see is Felix as Claude's in home full-time caretaker