ANALYSIS || Elon Musk continues to cause a stir. The social network he runs, X, too. Meanwhile, another social network – much smaller than X – is benefiting from all this. But there are no signs of this worrying Musk himself – especially since he became very rich after the elections
Bluesky’s user base has doubled in the last 90 days. Will it be a mass exodus from X?
analysis of Clare DuffyCNN (Liam Reilly e Matt Egan contributed to this article)
This week, X competitor Bluesky reached number one on Apple’s US App Store chart, with many users of Elon Musk’s platform saying they were leaving the platform in the wake of the billionaire’s significant role in the presidential election.
Bluesky’s user base has doubled in the last 90 days — on Tuesday, the company said it gained 1 million new signups last week alone, bringing it to more than 15 million total users.
The energy of X is very different: Musk spent months using the social network to promote President-elect Donald Trump. In recent days, researchers have recorded an increase in sexist language like “your body, my choice” on X. And this is in addition to previous changes made by Musk, such as cutting moderators, reinstating banned accounts, allowing racist accounts and Nazis and changing the platform’s verification system to boost anyone who was willing to pay no matter what they posted — all of which helped sink the company’s core ad business.
This week, several prominent journalists announced their departure from X to join Bluesky, including the Atlantic’s Charlie Warzel, the New York Times’ Mara Gay and former CNN anchor Don Lemon. So did British newspaper The Guardian, calling X “a toxic media platform,” although it did not specify which other platforms it intends to use to promote its work.
But while Bluesky may be having a moment three years after its launch, any claims that it will kill X should be taken with caution.
As a private company, X does not share user numbers. Recent third-party estimates of user trends are mixed, although the consistent user growth the platform enjoyed before Musk’s acquisition appears to have changed over the past two years. But — for better and probably worse — the site has so far weathered the creation of numerous other competitors, the reinstatement of white supremacists, and the spread of racist conspiracy theories from Musk on down without becoming irrelevant.
“X usage is at an all-time high and continues to rise,” said Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X, in a post on Wednesday. “All of our users – of all interests, political parties and points of view – will always have a place to engage and participate in the global conversation freely and safely.”
Do X users abandon the site after the elections?
More than 115,000 X users in the US deactivated their accounts the day after the election, the largest single-day exit since Musk took control of the social network, according to digital intelligence platform Similarweb. And this only included users who deactivated their accounts through the website and not the mobile app.
But X also had its highest web traffic of the entire year that same day, with 46.5 million visits on desktop alone, a 38% increase over the previous months’ average, says Similarweb. Bluesky also saw an increase in daily visits on Election Day and the day after, to 1.2 million and 1.3 million, respectively, versus about 800,000 in the previous days.
“It remains to be seen whether there will be a measurable decrease in X’s viewership as a result of the policy,” says David Carr, insights, news and research editor at Similarweb, in a blog post he made on Tuesday. But, he adds, “X’s recent daily traffic spike in the US does not offset the audience erosion the service has seen over the past two years since Musk took ownership of the service.”
Sensor Tower, another market intelligence firm, found that X’s daily active users and time spent on the social network increased on November 5 and 6 compared to the previous 30 days. But as of November 10, X’s daily active users remained relatively stable compared to the period immediately before the election, while Bluesky saw a 28% increase in users over the same period.
Still, X has many more users than Bluesky, highlights Sensor Tower (Bluesky also remains much smaller than Threads).
A third app data analysis company, Apptopia, reveals to CNN that activity on X increased significantly ahead of the election. According to the company, X’s daily active users peaked days later on November 9 before declining slightly. On Bluesky, daily users more than doubled between mid-October and the post-election week.
Here’s the conclusion to be drawn from all these numbers: X saw a big jump in usage leading up to and on Election Day and the day after, but it appears to be declining. At the same time, Bluesky has seen a post-election surge that appears to continue, although its global user base is still relatively small.
Of course, many people attend all types of media during election week. And it’s worth remembering that we’ve already seen many users abandon X following previous incidents with Musk, only for many of them to later return to the platform.
However, some prominent social media users claim that despite having more followers on X, they are now seeing more engagement with their posts – which users of these sites typically value above all else – on Bluesky.
Ed Zitron, founder of media relations firm EZPR, tells CNN that he and others have stayed with X “because there is a critical mass of readers there and there is a virality in the content that is posted.”
But, Zitron points out, “with the way Bluesky is growing now, I don’t see how (X) will remain dominant”, adding that he has 90,000 followers on X, but “the real engagement doesn’t seem to match”.
New York Times journalist Mike Isaac made a similar observation in a Bluesky post on Tuesday: “It’s really disorienting to go from Twitter — where I post to 200,000 followers and get five favs — to Bluesky, where a post gets 200 favs immediately.”
Musk’s return of 44 billion dollars
But here’s the thing: Even if X was losing users to Bluesky, there’s no sign that Musk cares enough to do anything.
Although Musk said when he acquired the platform that he wanted it to be a “politically neutral” digital marketplace, X took a sharp turn to the right under his leadership, even before it began defending Trump and the MAGA movement. Musk made X the first mainstream social platform to restore Trump’s account after it was widely banned following the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol, prompting other platforms to follow suit. In the run-up to the election, Musk spread false and misleading claims about Trump’s opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris. The platform would also have pushed political and pro-Trump content to users whether they wanted it or not.
Now, X has become something of a hub for right-wing social media users.
And by using the platform as a megaphone to promote Trump, Musk may have gotten the kind of return he didn’t even imagine when he bought Twitter for $44 billion two years ago: direct access to the US president.
Trump announced Tuesday night that Musk will take on an official role in his administration, becoming one of two people to lead a new “Department of Government Efficiency,” alongside Vivek Ramaswamy. Musk also joined a call between Trump and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky immediately after the election, presumably to discuss the war with Russia, in which Musk’s Starlink played a key role as a communications tool.
And Musk’s personal net worth also increased by $26.5 billion the day after the election, as investors hope his relationship with Trump will boost their companies’ fortunes.
In Musk’s mind, this is almost certainly worth much more than the decline in X’s advertising revenue and the loss of users.
