The former Twitter but now X social media platform, as reported by the Financial Times (FT) on 9th July, X growth has reportedly slowed since Elon Musk’s takeover in 2022, and X is also facing fresh competition from Meta-owned Threads stop while some are grappling with just how much they want Elon Musk’s influence.
X had 251 million global daily active users in the third quarter, increasing by a bit of over 6% from its count during the same period last year – “previously unreleased” the company will restatement. The company had been enjoying double-digit X growth in the years leading up to Musk’s purchase for $44billion back in October 2022.
But “(since) the Musk acquisition all advertisers have left that site, in part by his free speech absolutism methodology and drastic reduction of content moderation.” Musk has justified these actions as necessary cost-cutting measures, but critics argue that he has made the platform more toxic.
In the meantime, Threads, a Twitter alternative released last July in response to its data problems and celebrating its first birthday last week estimated at 175 million active monthly users; X is going up against this too. According to the FT report, X has 600 million monthly listeners on its platform.
But still, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had larger ambitions for the platform when Threads signed up 10 million people in seven hours soon after it launched.
“People should have a public conversations app that the planet can be conversing on,” he said. “Twitter has had the time to do this and just not nailed it. Hopefully, we will.” On an earnings call in April, Zuckerberg boasted about the 150 million Threads “growing as well.
The FT report also cites data from Similarweb which shows engagement on X plummeted since the U.S., France, and UK all went to the polls, but these figures were disputed by x who said active monthly users in both countries had increased “dramatically” between August 2003 this year and June.
Also last month, a Bloomberg News report outlined X’s attempts to roll out a payments product and disclosed financial records showing just how hard it has been for the company since Musk purchased it.
The documents reveal that X reported a total revenue of $1.48 billion during the first half of last year, an almost 40% drop compared to met same period in 2022 and recorded a loss of $456 million for the first quarter on this fiscal roll off (still unknown as it isn’t been disclosed).
