Twitter usage in US ‘fallen by a fifth’ since Elon Musk’s takeover / X / The Guardian

App users for social media site, rebranded as X, down by 23% since November 2022 according to Sensor Tower

Alex Hern UK technology editor Tue 26 Mar 2024 13.41 EDT

  • Twitter Usage Decline: Since Elon Musk’s takeover and rebranding to X, daily app users in the US have dropped by 23% as of February 2024.
  • Global Impact: Globally, X’s daily active app users fell by 15%, reaching 174 million.
  • Company Valuation: Fidelity has marked down the value of X by 71.5% from November 2022 to November 2023, valuing it at just over $12.5 billion.
  • Legal Update: A judge dismissed Musk’s lawsuit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate, citing it as an attempt to punish the defendants for their speech.

Use of Twitter in the US has slumped by more than a fifth since Elon Musk bought the site and rebranded it to X, according to data from app-monitoring company Sensor Tower.1

Social Media Daily App Users – America2
X/Twitter -23%
TikTok -10%
Facebook < -5%
Instagram < -5%
Snapchat < -5%

Globally, X fared slightly better, dropping 15% of its users to hit 174 million daily active app users, according to Sensor Tower’s data.

While X did not respond to a request for comment, the company implicitly rebuffed Sensor Tower’s claims in a public post. In an unsigned message, it said that “250 million people use X every day”, with 550 million visiting every month, and that “daily average time spent on platform” and “daily active user minutes” are both up year on year.

Fidelity’s blue chip growth fund, which holds its stake, has continuously marked down the value it attributes to the company, hitting its latest low of a 71.5% reduction in value from November 2022 to November 2023.

Since Musk paid $44bn for his stake, that brings Fidelity’s assessed value for the overall company to just over $12.5bn.

On Monday, a judge in California dismissed Musk’s lawsuit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a non-profit that has published reports chronicling the rise of racist, antisemitic and extremist content on the platform since Musk’s acquisition.

“Sometimes it is unclear what is driving a litigation, and only by reading between the lines of a complaint can one attempt to surmise a plaintiff’s true purpose,” wrote Charles Breyer, the US district judge, in the ruling. “Other times, a complaint is so unabashedly and vociferously about one thing that there can be no mistaking that purpose. This case represents the latter circumstance. This case is about punishing the defendants for their speech.”

  1. @RalphHightower: As of April 27, 2023, I deactivated my Twitter account based on this Elon Musk tweet:
    @Elon[Musk](https://x.com/elonmusk): Anyone making materially false statements on this platform will get Community Noted, including you, me, Tucker, advertisers, head of state, etc. No exceptions.
    Convince the people and let the chips fall where they may.
    @RalphHightower: Seriously? Yet you welcomed back a pathological liar, Donald Trump, who incited and welcomed violence in an attempted coup d’état on January 6 in the storming of the U.S. Capitol. Twitter has gone to HELL! ↩

  2. @RalphHightower: Period November 2022 – February 2024. ↩