Elon Musk’s X social media platform, formerly known as Twitter, is shrinking under his leadership, according to new data from the mobile research firm Apptopia. A significant decrease in daily active users has created a growing gap between people who use the app every day and those who log in as little as once a month.
Twitter has lost approximately 13 percent of its daily active users since Musk bought the company in October 2022, and the platform’s rebrand from Twitter to X has only accelerated the decline, according to data obtained by The Wrap.
Elon Musk Twitter X (CHRIS DELMAS/Getty)
Users who are still on X/Twitter, however, remain engaged on the social media platform. As for Threads, Mark Zuckerberg’s “sanely run” Twitter clone, it has proven to be a nonfactor, the report added.
The platform’s daily user base reportedly declined from an estimated 140 million users to 121 million under Musk’s direction. There is also a widening gap between people who check the app daily vs. monthly.
Notably, Musk rebranded Twitter in July, turning it into X. This caused “serious harm” to the company, the Wrap reported, noting that X went on to lose more than 5 percent of it daily users in both August and September. Breitbart News previously reported that branding experts called Musk’s name change “completely irrational.”
“After the sudden rebrand, there was a ~2,000% spike in negative daily app reviews,” Adam Blacker, Apptopia’s director of content and communications, said, adding that “the keywords ‘logo’ and ‘blue bird’ appeared as top 10 keywords left in user reviews, each with negative sentiments attached to them.”
While X/Twitter’s remaining daily active users continue to spend a consistent amount of time on the app, the report noted that these users are “top-heavy,” and are considered to be the platform’s “power users” or top 10 percent of users. These users account for account for 72 percent of all time spent on the app.
The data also suggests that a new group of power users might have replaced users who left — or that power users and casual users left the platform in consistent numbers.
Apptopia’s data reportedly came from more than 100,000 apps on iPhones and Androids, as well as from publicly available sources.
Meanwhile, Meta’s Threads platform, which some people thought was going to give X/Twitter a run for its money, has shown itself to be a total “dud,” the Wrap reported.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and X/Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.