Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Remember Twitter? That was Elon Musk‘s favorite social-networking service. He was such a fan that he made a $44 billion bid for the company, then tried to renege on the deal when tech stocks swooned in 2022 before he was forced to consummate the pact after Twitter sued him.
The tech mogul closed the debt-burdened Twitter deal on Oct. 27, 2022, and promptly terminated the senior executive team. In the one year since then, Musk among other things has overseen an 80% reduction in headcount; renamed the company “X”; partially dismantled Twitter’s blue check-mark system and now grants “verified” status to $8-per-month X Premium subscribers (whose posts receive algorithmic preference); and launched a test to charge users $1 per year to post to the platform (which he says is necessary to combat bots).
So how’s it going at X today? Not great, according to several indicators. Millions of users, including several celebrities, have quit in the wake of Musk’s takeover and dramatic refashioning of Twitter.
In September 2023, monthly active users for X/Twitter had dropped 15% worldwide (and 18% in the U.S.) year-over-year, according to web analytics provider SimilarWeb.
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