Bluesky And X Users Plummet Year After Trump’s Election Win—Truth Social Makes Small Gains

Key Facts

Why Is Bluesky’s Traffic Tanking?

Founded by Twitter co-founder and billionaire Jack Dorsey, Bluesky launched its invite-only beta version in early 2023 with a nearly indistinguishable look from Twitter. Bluesky generated buzz among users who were disgruntled with Musk’s leadership of Twitter, which he purchased and rebranded to X with an emphasis on “free speech,” changing key features like verification and content moderation—though critics say this allowed misinformation and hate speech to proliferate. Bluesky surged in interest after Musk’s Twitter takeover, and again after Trump won his second presidential election last year. Two weeks after Trump’s election victory, Similarweb said usage of the Bluesky app spiked 500% in the United States. But some reports suggest Bluesky never rivaled X in its number of users, and its more left-of-center political discourse limited its growth. A New York Times magazine piece in December 2024 said despite the post-election surge in Bluesky traffic, the platform never became as “robust (read: fun)” as X, where the “jokes and ideas are more polished” and users can find “more up-to-the-minute analysis” on news and cultural moments. A Wired reporter wrote a piece titled “Bluesky can’t take a joke,” describing an apparent humor gap between X and Bluesky, and Slate writers said in June that on Bluesky, the “jokes are far outweighed by the solemnity” of its focus on politics. Billionaire Bluesky user Mark Cuban voiced frustration with Bluesky’s heavily liberal user base, saying in a post in June the discourse on the app has become “hateful” and “went from great convos on many topics, to agree with me or you are a nazi fascist.” Musk, responding to a screenshot of Cuban’s comments, called Bluesky users a “bunch of super judgy hall monitors.” In September, the New Yorker described a “culture of recursive, reactionary scolding on Bluesky that makes it less fun,” suggesting some liberal users were returning to X following Musk’s split from the Trump administration.

Why Is X Losing Users?

X faced an exodus of users once Musk purchased and rebranded the platform in late 2022, with many advertisers jumping ship, though some advertisers returned under since-departed CEO Linda Yaccarino. But X faced another user exodus after Trump won the 2024 election and enlisted Musk, a major Trump donor, as an adviser and government efficiency chief. Daily active users on X on mobile devices dropped from 146.9 million in November to 143.4 million in December, according to Similarweb, a sharper drop than the preceding months. X has lost about 20 million daily active users on mobile devices over the past year, dipping to 128.8 million as of the end of October. At the same time, Meta’s Threads has surged in usage and surpassed X in a key metric for the first time in October, beating it in the number of daily active users for the month—recording 132.5 million daily active users, about 4 million more than X.

Is Truth Social Gaining Traffic?

Trump’s Truth Social is up 32% in traffic year-over-year as of October, though the platform remains much smaller than every other major social network—it had a comparatively tiny 341,000 daily average users in October on mobile devices worldwide, according to Similarweb. Though traffic is trending up, it appears more erratic, with big surges appearing to correlate with notable Trump posts. And while Trump only rarely posts on X, his most social-media friendly members of his administration—like Vice President JD Vance and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem—are far more active on X. Truth Social’s biggest month was June, recording 516,800 daily average users, and its biggest day that month was June 23, with 901,300 active users. That day, Trump posted frequently through a conflict with Iran, days after the United States launched strikes on its nuclear facilities. Trump criticized Iran’s retaliatory strikes on a U.S. base in Qatar as “a very weak response,” and hours later, he posted Israel and Iran had agreed to a ceasefire after days of exchanging strikes. Truth Social saw another big spike of 625,700 users on Sept. 10, the day right-wing activist Charlie Kirk was killed. “The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead,” Trump said in a post that day, later posting a video stating he was “filled with grief and anger at the heinous assassination.”

Further Reading

Threads Passes X In Key Monthly Metric For First Time In Zuckerberg Vs. Musk Battle (Forbes)