In the year since Elon Musk’s acquisition of the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, now renamed “X,” there has been a significant drop in both user engagement and advertising revenue.
The Washington Post reports that after Elon Musk took the reins of Twitter a year ago, both the billionaire himself and his admirers had high hopes and a vision to transform the platform, resulting in a surge in popularity and value. However, recent data paints a different picture.
Elon Musk’s Halloween costume (Taylor Hill /Getty)
X/Twitter, has experienced a significant loss of users and advertisers during the first year under Elon Musk’s ownership, according to recent data. This decline is evident in several key metrics. Global app downloads for X have plummeted by approximately 38 percent between October 2022 and September 2023 according to an analysis by Sensor Tower. In the U.S. alone, mobile app downloads saw a sharper decline, falling by 57 percent during the same period. Another app analysis firm, Data.AI, has released similar figures.
Furthermore, the platform’s monthly active Android users have decreased, with a drop of 14.8 percent globally and 17.8 percent for U.S. mobile users year-over-year for September according to SimilarWeb. Another concerning statistic is the increase in user churn, or users who stop using the app, which has surged by more than 30 percent year-over-year as of September 2023 per Sensor Tower.
Breitbart News reported this week on other user data demonstrating a worrying drop in engagement on X/Twitter:
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.
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.”
On the advertising front, the platform has faced challenges as well. A decrease in user engagement combined with concerns about brand safety and misinformation has deterred advertisers. According to recent data, X/Twitter’s advertising business has experienced a sharper decline than other tech firms in the past year. This decline in advertising is significant, with reports indicating that the company’s U.S. ad business was down by 60 percent.
However, not all is bleak for X/Twitter. Some positive trends have emerged, such as a spike in traffic to Elon Musk’s personal profile and posts, which saw an impressive 96 percent year-over-year increase in September.
Read more at the Washington Post here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.