So Elon Musk’s X project is seemingly losing users, not gaining them, though not at the levels that some reports have suggested.
Over the past few weeks, speculation has been that more X users, particularly those in the U.K., are moving away from the app due to Musk’s incendiary comments on the recent U.K. race riots. Yet evidence from third party app analytics providers doesn’t indicate a mass exodus of X users, though there are some indicators of a small, but steady decline over time.
But now we have some more definitive data, from X itself, which shows that X is seeing usage declines, the EU at least, which could be indicative of a broader shift.
As part of the EU Digital Services Act (DSA), all social platforms need to provide an overview of active users in the EU every six months. And late last week, X posted its latest update.
As you can see, this overview covers the period between February and July 2024, giving us an up-to-date figure on X’s usage in the EU region. Which, it’s important to note, is only indicative of a single region, and not overall X usage, yet it does provide some scope of the platform’s usage in a key usage region.
And yes, the data does show that X usage is declining in that region.
This chart shows X’s EU usage disclosures thus far, in line with DSA requirements. Elon Musk took over at X in late 2022, and as you can see, that did seemingly lead to a bump in EU usage in the first half of 2023. But since then it’s been in decline, with the latest report showing a 5% decline in EU users in the first half of this year.
Though it’s not all negative news for X. It has also seen a 10% increase in logged in users in the region, versus non logged-in guests, since last year. But then again, X has also restricted the amount of posts that non users can see, which has probably forced more people to sign up.
And evidently, they’re not becoming regular active users, so in some ways that’s a win, but in others, not so much.
Again, this is only EU usage, which doesn’t include the U.K., where the most discussion about an X migration has been focused. And at 100 million monthly actives, this only represents a fifth of X’s overall user base.
But it does suggest that X isn’t gaining traction, as Musk and Co. continue to project.
X also hasn’t added any daily active users since November 2022, When Elon declared that the app had reached 250 million DAU.
But then again, of those who are active in the app, Elon continues to claim that active user seconds are rising, which means that dedicated X users are continuing to use the platform more often.
Really, overall, this reflects the same trends we’re seeing in other data reports, that X is seeing a slow decline in interest, but not a massive shift.
As this chart based on SimilarWeb data shows, UK X usage has steadily been declining over time, while Threads usage, by comparison, is slowly rising. There are no major spikes, we’re not seeing millions of people logging off from X from the last time all at once.
But the overall trends do seem to suggest that Threads is reaching fewer people over time.
That could mean that Elon’s “free speech” approach isn’t resonating with users, or it more likely indicates that Musk’s own political commentary is turning more people off from the app.
I mean, Meta has repeatedly noted that its users are sick of politically motivated content causing angst and division in its apps. Maybe, that’s also causing more fatigue on X, as Musk continues to lean into political discussions, and amplify controversial content.
