So Elon Musk's Project X appears to be losing users rather than gaining them, but not to the extent that some reports have suggested.
In the past few weeks, there has been speculation that Musk's inflammatory comments about the recent race riots in the UK may be driving more X users away from the app, particularly in the UK. However, evidence from third-party app analytics providers does not suggest a mass exodus of X users, although there are some indications that there has been a small but steady decline over time.
But now there is clearer data from X itself showing that its use, at least in the EU, is declining, which could be a sign of wider change.
As part of the EU Digital Services Act (DSA), all social platforms must provide an overview of their active users in the EU every six months, and last weekend X published its latest update.
As you can see, this overview covers the period from February to July 2024 and provides the latest figures on X usage in the EU region. It is important to note that this only represents a single region and does not represent overall X usage, but it does provide some insight into the platform's usage in the major regions of use.
And certainly, the data shows that X use in the area is declining.
This chart shows X's EU usage disclosure to date, in line with DSA requirements: Elon Musk took over at X in late 2022, and as you can see, there appears to have been a spike in EU usage in the first half of 2023. However, it has been declining since then, with the latest report showing a 5% drop in EU users in the first half of this year.
It's not all bad news for X: Since last year, logged-in users in the region have increased by 10% compared to non-logged-in guests, but X is also limiting the number of posts non-users can see, perhaps forcing more people to register.
And obviously they're not becoming regular active users, so in some ways it's a win, but in other ways it's not.
Again, this is only EU usage and does not include the UK, where the X transition discussions are most intense, and with 100 million monthly active users, that's just one-fifth of X's entire user base.
But this suggests that the X isn't gaining traction as Musk and others continue to predict.
Additionally, X has not increased its daily active users since November 2022, when Elon declared that the app's DAU had reached 250 million.
However, Elon continues to claim that the number of active user seconds among those active within the app is increasing, meaning that engaged X users are continuing to use the platform more frequently.
In fact, overall, this reflects the same trends we see in other data reports, with interest in X slowly declining but without any major changes.
As this chart, based on data from SimilarWeb, shows, UK usage of X has steadily declined over time, while Threads usage has increased slowly in comparison – there's been no big spike, and it's not like millions of users are logging off X all at once since the last time.
However, looking at the overall trend, it seems like Threads' reach is decreasing over time.
While this could mean that Elon's “free speech” approach isn't resonating with users, it's more likely an indication that Musk's own political comments are driving more people away from the app.
That being said, Meta has repeatedly noted that users are tired of politically motivated content within the app that causes unrest and division. Perhaps Musk's continued leaning into political debate and amplifying controversial content is adding to the X fatigue.
