A year after Elon Musk took over, Twitter (X) numbers continue to fall

Next week marks one year since Elon Musk closed his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter. “We’ll be doing a lot of stupid things on Twitter in the coming months. “We will keep what works and change what doesn’t” Musk warned days after taking control. Since then, more than 70% of the company’s employees have left the company, cash flow remains negative, regulators insist that the social network is dangerous, and Musk keeps announcing sudden changes to the platform.

He even changed the name of Twitter to X. But none of this stopped users from jumping ship. Over the past year, Twitter’s global web traffic has declined by 14%. According to SimilarWeb. In the US, where about a quarter of traffic comes from, the figure fell by 19% from September 2022 to September 2023.

Performance on mobile devices also dropped. It recorded a 17.8% year-over-year decline based on the combined monthly active users of iOS and Android in the US. Globally, Android usage fell 14.8%.

It could have been worse. LikeWeb describes it as “slow downward spiral”. “X/Twitter’s audience has shrunk, but not evaporated,” says the latest report, published this week. The consulting firm essentially admits that the social network Musk runs wasn’t the only one to fail this year. But yes: no one was hurt that badly.

Web traffic on the 100 largest social networks tracked by LikeWeb has collectively fallen 3.7% over the past year. But of the top eight, only Twitter and Facebook reported a drop in user traffic. In the Meta network the share was 10%. The rest have grown up. For example, TikTok saw global traffic increase by 22% compared to last year.

Elon Musk and Twitter’s struggle with the media

With everything and this Twitter remains one of the largest networks. Its website is second only to Facebook and Instagram in terms of traffic, with 5 billion visits per month, LikeWeb highlights. It’s another step up in the list of apps Americans carry with them on their mobile devices, with a combined total of just under 100 million monthly active iOS and Android users.

LikeWeb calls Musk’s fight with many of the world’s largest media outlets a potential new risk for Twitter’s business. For example, earlier this year the tycoon decided to label company profiles as BBC or RTVE How “Government Affiliated Facility” or “Government Sponsored Facility.” Finally, after general rejection, he refused. But the dispute continued.

Last August, Twitter was found to be slowing down traffic to sites that Elon Musk doesn’t like. Among them are those from The newspaper “New York Times. “Musk’s current dispute with the media may further reduce X’s usefulness as a news source,” LikeWeb says.

Musk in early October implemented the removal of headlines from previews of news articles that users post on Twitter. “This comes directly from me. “It will greatly improve the aesthetics,” the Tesla and SpaceX executive also said. But the media loves The keeper They called the measure another hostile move by the tycoon.

Popularity Mask

Twitter’s performance is getting worse. Musk is better than ever. Musk was already one of the most popular users of the social network even before purchasing it. When he became the head of the company, the reach of his profile and publications increased dramatically. This is no longer the 90 million visits he achieved on his page in October and November last year. “However, traffic continues to grow at a slow pace,” notes LikeWeb.

Musk cares about his popularity on his own platform. So much so that Platformer In February last year it was reported that the company’s engineers had created a special system aimed at increasing tweets tycoon artificially. After a negative balance in its first year, LikeWeb summarizes it as follows: “If Elon Musk wanted to drive traffic to his social media profile, there surely had to be a cheaper and easier way.”