Are users leaving Elon Musk’s X en masse and where are they heading?

The limited data on X user numbers makes measuring the full extent of the reported exodus from the platform almost impossible.

Transcript

00:00Are users really fleeing Elon Musk is X? Users have been deserting X, formerly known

00:11as Twitter, since the U.S. presidential election, citing concerns over toxic rhetoric and pro-Trump

00:19partisanship. Around 115,000 X accounts were reportedly deleted in the U.S. the day after

00:27the presidential vote. But is this really the start of a mass exodus from the Musk-owned

00:32platform? And where are users migrating? Data on X usage across the world is contested because

00:41of the platform's opaque reporting. But estimates suggest there were 611 million monthly users

00:48globally in April this year, falling by 6% to 588 million by September. The decline was

00:56driven by departures from the platform in the U.S., the U.K. and the EU. Data on X usage

01:04in the EU provided by the platform shows that X users have plummeted by a staggering 16%

01:10over the past year, with user numbers declining in 25 of 27 EU member states. It's clear that

01:18some Western users are growing skeptical of the platform under Musk's leadership. But

01:24Musk and his entourage say other metrics, such as seconds spent on the app and the number

01:30of video views, prove that the platform is in fact growing. Since the U.S. election,

01:36downloads of competitor platform Blue Sky have surged by an estimated 10 million. The

01:42platform was set up by former Twitter founder Jack Dorsey and has a stronger focus on content

01:48moderation. But at just 20 million users worldwide, it's not yet close to challenging the

01:54dominance of X.