Exactly a year ago, on October 27, 2022, tech entrepreneur Elon Musk successfully bought Twitter for $44 billion, or around Php 2.5 trillion in today’s money. A lot of things have happened to the social media platform since then, including a complete rebranding to X, a loosening of content moderation in the site, and probably the worst offender out of all – the introduction of the paid subscription service Twitter Blue (now X Premium).
Musk, considered the richest man on Earth with a current net worth of $220.8 billion (Php 12.5 trillion), initially envisioned turning Twitter into an “everything app” that promoted free speech and had better handling of spam bots, but that has not fully materialized. Despite this, the 52-year-old recently claimed that the platform was still “growing fast.” Third-party data points to a different conclusion.
Citing figures provided by research firm Sensor Tower, The Wall Street Journal reported that X’s number of daily active users dropped by 16% in September when compared to October of last year, or around the time Musk completed his takeover.
Additionally, recent downloads for the platform decreased following its rebranding in July. People searching for Twitter did not necessarily know that it was now called X, according to Tom Grant, the vice president of research at data and analytics company Apptopia.
But these aren’t even the biggest red flags that are signaling X’s worsening situation. Musk admitted in April that he had fired 6,000 of the platform’s employees. He also stated last month that X’s advertising revenue was down by 60% since his buyout, and executives at large agencies say there has been no large-scale return of advertisers to the platform. Last but not least, X’s value fell to around $20 billion – or less than half its purchase price – as of March, according to Musk.
Even with all of this laid out, Musk still thinks X has made “great progress.” And people still think he’s a genius? Well, at least Musk has just introduced video and audio calling to his platform, a feature that absolutely no one asked for.