NO SUPRISE: A Year After Elon Musk Bought Twitter, Monthly Users Have Dipped To 15% & Ad Revenue Dropped 54%
Written by djfrosty on October 27, 2023
Source: NurPhoto / Getty / X / Twitter / Elon Musk
This news should surprise NO ONE. X (formerly known as Twitter) is a hot a** mess; users have bounced, and it is not bringing in any ad revenue.
Spotted on Variety, Elon Musk’s plan to make Twitter, oops, we mean X, and make it the most worthless social media platform on the planet seems to be working.
In only a year after he reluctantly took over the debt-burdened platform that was known as Twitter and made such stupid moves like the 80% reduction in staff, stupidly renaming it to X and making the blue check useless, and turned the platform into a haven for misinformation, it should come as no surprise X is not doing good.
Per Variety:
Millions of users, including several celebrities, have quit in the wake of Musk’s takeover and dramatic refashioning of Twitter. In September 2023, monthly active users for X/Twitter had dropped 15% worldwide (and 18% in the U.S.) year-over-year, according to web analytics provider SimilarWeb. Other third-party measures indicate a roughly similar decline; mobile daily active users dropped 16% on an annual basis in September 2023, to 183 million, according to Sensor Tower. Musk last month claimed that X has 550 million monthly active users, who share up to 200 million posts daily, but it’s unclear how that might compare to past measures.
Advertising On X Is Also On A Downward Spiral
Twitter, damn, we mean X, relied heavily on advertising dollars, but if you have been on there lately, the ads have been lacking, except for numerous Cheech and Chong gummy ads up and down our timelines.
The website reports, via the Wall Street Journal’s reporting, that ad spending from major ad agencies on the platform has dropped to 54%. That’s a significant dip.
Instead of blaming himself, Musk blames groups like ADL for pointing out that his platform has become a haven for hate speech under his ownership, and that is what is keeping advertisers from coming to the platform.
“Our US advertising revenue is still down 60%, primarily due to pressure on advertisers by @ADL (that’s what advertisers tell us), so they almost succeeded in killing X/Twitter!” Bootleg Tony Stark wrote on Sept. 4.
Musk even said he would sue the ADL, but whatever issues between Musk and the ADL seem to have been resolved.
“We appreciate X’s stated intent over the last few weeks to address antisemitism and hate on the platform,” the ADL wrote in a statement released on Oct.4.
X also slapped activist research group, the Center For Countering Digital Hate, with a lawsuit for claiming there is a rise in hate speech on X, which Musk says is false.
Instagram Threads is looking better and better.
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Photo: NurPhoto / Getty