When Elon Musk bought popular social media platform Twitter last year, the tech world was excited to see the richest man in the world throw his hat into the social media ring. Shortly after, Twitter as everyone knew it ceased to exist.
The landscape of the internet had changed forever. 500 million actively monthly users now found themselves part of Elon’s latest business venture.
Six months on, we look back at what happened to Twitter, and what we can expect to see next from X.
What happened to Twitter?
Elon Musk completed his acquisition of Twitter in October 2022. In July 2023, he stated plans to “bid adieu to the Twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds.” Two weeks later, Twitter has become X, Tweets had become posts, and the iconic blue bird had been reduced to a single, art-deco letter.
Why did Twitter rebrand to X?
Twitter’s rebrand to X can be interpreted as Musk’s way of transforming the social media platform into a new “everything app”.
His obsession with the letter X can be traced back to 1999 when he founded financial start-up x.com (which would later become PayPal). He also launched SpaceX, has the Model X as part of the Tesla roster, and even named his 11th child X.
Do people actually call Twitter X?
The short answer is no. A recent study showed that 72% of Americans still call the app Twitter. Major broadcasters still use the Twitter brand with X interchangeably, and the Associated Press stylebook suggests global media outlets still refer to the app as “X, formerly known as Twitter” six months after the renaming.
Read: 5 Takeaways from Twitter's Rebrand to X
Tech commentators are divided on whether the move will prove to be brand suicide or a positive move. Either way, with Twitter and Tweets having had such an effect on pop culture for so long, it will take a while before X catches on.
How is X doing now?
It depends how you look at it. As of 2023, X has 556 million active monthly users. The platform’s CEO, Linda Yaccarino, announced proudly that they had received 10 million new sign-ups in December alone, though didn’t elaborate on how that compared with an average month.
It remains the most popular social app of it's kind, easily weathering the storm of copycats (Threads, Mastodon, Truth Social et al).
That being said, mutual fund Fidelity reported last week that the value of X/Twitter has dropped by 71% (from $44 billion to $12.5 billion) since Elon’s acquisition. It has also lost half a Billion users since its rebrand, with users plummetting by over 10% in September alone.
Its new monetisation model is also not testing well with users. Comments below X posts are now commonly flooded with engagement farmers and OnlyFans models since the change to push and promote replies from paid users.
Furthermore, Elon’s pursuit for free speech has led to a clear rise in misinformation, harassment, hate speech, and NSFW content on the platform.
With more of Gen Z now using TikTok over X as a news platform/search engine/way to keep up with their favorite celebrities and sports teams, it remains to be seen who will come out on top in this new social media battle.
There has been a significant shift in user behavior away from X towards alternative short form platforms like Bluesky. Many user cite concerns over content moderation, changes to the platform's algorithm, and Musk's controversial statements.
