Elon Musk's X Sees Popularity Slide After Election — While Bluesky Makes Gains
Elon Musk's X, formerly known as Twitter, has experienced a dropoff in U.S. user traffic since November's presidential election, while rival social media platform Bluesky's traffic has increased since then, according to data from digital market intelligence company Similarweb, though X is still significantly more popular than its competitor.
Musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion in 2022. (Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
X's daily web visits (calculated on a month-by-month basis) are down an average of 8.4% compared to November, after briefly spiking during the election and largely plateauing in the proceeding days, while average daily active users per month on the platform are down 7.2% to 25 million in that same window of time, according to Similarweb.
Meanwhile, Bluesky maintained a post-election boom in daily web visits and daily active users (calculated on a month-by-month basis), with Similarweb reporting average daily web visits are up 21.5% compared to November while average daily active users are up 2.3% to 1.5 million.
Bluesky has mostly managed to keep its number of daily active users above 1.5 million since the election, marking a roughly threefold jump since the start of November, when active users numbered around 540,000.
While X has experienced relatively small dips in traffic, it still remains the more popular app, with an average of 25 million daily active users this month compared to Bluesky's 1.5 million, according to preliminary Similarweb data.
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X's daily web visits (calculated on a day-by-day basis) have fallen 34.2% to 30.6 million since its Election Day peak of 46.5 million, according to the most recent data from Similarweb. Meanwhile, daily active iOS and Android users on X have slid 22.1% from Election Day to March 21, dropping to 24.3 million, according to Similarweb.
Similarweb data showed Bluesky daily web visits (calculated on a day-by-day basis) surged over a week after the election, peaking at 2.6 million on Nov. 15 and cooling off in December before rising back to 2.6 million on March 21, meaning the X alternative has managed to maintain its boost in post-election traffic. However, daily active users have dropped on Bluesky since its post-Election Day surge, falling 28.5% to 1.5 million from Nov. 15 to March 21.
Compared to X and Bluesky, Meta's Threads platform has the largest daily active user increase (calculated on a month-by-month basis) since November, boasting a 14% increase to 13.6 million since then.
The election proved a boon for social media traffic on multiple platforms. However, X benefited the most compared to Bluesky, peaking at 46.5 million daily active users on Election Day after starting November with about 34 million daily active users. Musk and his 219 million followers likely contributed to the surge, as the billionaire owner of the platform made thousands of posts around the election that garnered over 33 billion views, according to The Washington Post. Musk, who endorsed and funded President Donald Trump in the last election cycle and gained popularity among right-wing social media users, has navigated a turbulent 2025. The billionaire has received criticism for his role overseeing Trump's Department of Government Efficiency, concern over his seemingly diminished role heading Tesla and continued backlash against a gesture he made in January likened to a Nazi salute, as well as Nazi-related posts and puns he published on X.
Musk's mounting controversies do not appear to have done much to rattle X in the way it has done to Tesla, which has been publicly protested in recent weeks. Instead, the social media platform maintains a dominance in its sphere while competitors like Bluesky, which have grown, still command just a fraction of the traffic of X. Bluesky was co-founded by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and has been propped up as an alternative platform to X, one that also allows users to make text-based posts and message others. The app was invite-only until last year and also allows users to block others, a welcome feature for some who have taken issue with the block feature on X, which does not stop blocked users from seeing public posts of the user blocking them. Bluesky spokesperson Emily Liu told Forbes following the election that the platform had a total of about 14.5 million users.
A Timeline Of Elon Musk's Terrible 24 Hours—A Dark Day For X, Tesla And More (Forbes)
What To Know About Bluesky—The Buzzy Social Media App Siphoning Users From Elon Musk's X (Forbes)
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