On November 6, social network X experienced the largest user outflow since its purchase by Elon Musk in 2022. The day after the US presidential election, thousands of people, including famous journalists and brands, began switching to alternative platforms – Bluesky and Threads. The unprecedented outcome underscores growing dissatisfaction with Musk’s politics and the changed atmosphere at X, which has seen an increase in bots, political advertising and hateful content.
Image source: X
The number of account deactivations reached 115,414, the largest figure since the platform came under Musk’s control. Disappointed by Musk’s open support for Donald Trump, many users flocked to safer social media, with The Guardian newspaper and journalist Don Lemon among those who left.
NBC News interviewed six users who decided to switch to Threads and Bluesky immediately after the presidential election. Each of them noted that under Musk’s leadership, social network X has become unsafe due to the growing number of bots, politicized advertising and aggressive speech. These problems, according to those surveyed, became especially noticeable after the election of Trump and Musk’s participation in his team. Users expressed concern that X was losing the values of an open and safe space for communication, which reinforced the perception of X as a hostile environment.
For Kara Wurtz, 39, a financial executive in St. Louis, leaving X was a deep personal disappointment. After spending about eight years on this platform, she was used to receiving the information she needed in a relaxed environment, but noticed that under Musk’s leadership, X no longer met her needs. “Every time I opened the app, it dumped content on me that ruined my mood,” she said. Wurtz noted an increase in anti-women posts, which was the “last straw” for her that prompted her to switch to Threads: “I noticed that from Tuesday to Wednesday night I began to see a lot more anti-women statements. And I thought: “You know what? It’s personal. I’ve had enough.” Initially, her community was not represented on the new platform, but over the past 5 days, many of the people she used to follow on X began to join Threads.
Against the backdrop of these events, in the first week after the elections, more than a million new users joined the Bluesky platform, increasing its audience to 15 million people. On November 3, Instagram✴ CEO Adam Mosseri announced that Threads had reached 275 million monthly active users. Such rapid growth indicates an increased demand for alternative platforms and the desire of the audience to find a more comfortable environment for communication.
According to Similarweb, on November 6, Bluesky’s traffic surpassed Threads for the first time, and the platform itself took first place among free applications in the Apple App Store. Bluesky representatives told NBC News that the bulk of new users came from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. “We’re excited to welcome all these new people, from Taylor Swift fans to urban planners,” a Bluesky spokesperson said.
Company X refrained from publishing data on the number of users who left, but noted that the number of publications on the platform reached a record 942 million messages. David Carr, analytics editor at Similarweb, told NBC News that on Election Day, X recorded its highest level of activity for the year. However, already on November 6, the platform experienced the maximum number of account deactivations, which was an unprecedented outcome for the entire period of Musk’s management.
Image source: @elonmusk/X
For 22-year-old Texas resident Noëlle Polo, an administrator for a Taylor Swift fan account, switching to Bluesky was a logical step. On the morning of the election, her community of pop fans known as “Swifties” joined Bluesky in droves. Polo preferred Bluesky because it is not tied to her personal Instagram account✴, allowing her to keep her personal posts and fan content separate. “The Swifties have been looking for another platform to replace Twitter ever since Elon took over. The atmosphere there just wasn’t healthy anymore,” she added.
Rory Mir, director of community organizing at the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, emphasizes that X’s situation demonstrates the importance of who owns the platforms users rely on for online communications. “Users see that X has subjectively lost its value. They feel that the topics that matter to them are not being resonated or promoted on the platform. In many cases, they do not feel safe using this social network,” he noted.
For users like José Vilson, an author and educator, the decision to leave X was not an easy one. Wilson emphasized that the platform meant much more to him than just a space for publications – it helped him find an audience and establish professional contacts. “I’ll probably post less, but I’m not going to delete the account unless it means you’re going to get in big trouble if you don’t,” he said, emphasizing the importance of X to his work.
Laura Sell, marketing and social media manager at Duke University Press, said that their team is actively developing an audience on Bluesky and Threads, but continues to be present on X, where they have more than 50 thousand subscribers. “It’s hard to just leave. I think if something really egregious happens, we might start discussing it with our writers,” she admitted.
On November 10, X is introducing new terms of use for the service, for the first time explicitly indicating the possibility of using user posts to train AI systems, including Grok’s own generative AI. In the X settings, users can disable this function, but the new conditions have already made many people want to reconsider their presence on Musk’s platform and even delete previously published materials.
There are free services for users who want to delete all their posts, but some of them do not guarantee the absence of negative consequences, such as possible account blocking, or require additional technical steps. Companies like TweetDelete and Circleboom offer automatic deletion of posts, but this service is only available to paid subscribers.
Micah Lee, a user privacy advocate and developer, told NBC News he is creating a new free service called Cyd that will allow posts to be removed on X and other platforms. The service launch is scheduled for next week. The X situation clearly demonstrates that the choice of communication platform increasingly depends not only on its functionality, but also on the ethical values it represents.