- Wednesday, October 16, 2024
Elon Musk, the renowned Tesla CEO, took over X, formerly known as Twitter, one year ago. However, his tenure has faced challenges despite the platform's lofty aspirations.
Under Musk's leadership, significant changes have been made to X, but the outcomes have been mixed. Musk himself acknowledges that the platform's valuation has dropped to around $20 billion as of March, a considerable decline from the $44 billion he spent to acquire Twitter in October 2022.
In September, global web traffic to Twitter witnessed a 14% decrease compared to the same month in the previous year. Additionally, Similarweb, a digital data and analytics company, estimates that traffic to Twitter's advertiser portal dropped by 17%.
Although web traffic decline was not exclusive to X, it was notably significant. Similarweb's data reveals that the top 100 social networks and communities it tracks experienced a mere 3.7% decrease in overall traffic during the same period. Musk's efforts to eliminate bot accounts from the site may have contributed to this decline.
X was not available for immediate comment on this matter. Nevertheless, in October, the social media platform reported a daily average of 1.5 million new sign-ups, reflecting a 4% increase from the previous year. It also boasted more than 500 million monthly users. According to Similarweb, X had approximately 75 million monthly users across iOS and Android platforms in September.
Interestingly, X's dip in traffic could be advantageous for Meta Platforms (META), which introduced its microblogging platform, Threads, in July to attract dissatisfied X users. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently disclosed that Threads has acquired fewer than 100 million monthly users.
Directly comparing user numbers between platforms can be challenging due to different counting methodologies. Similarweb approximates that Threads had 6.7 million monthly active users on iOS and Android in September, considerably fewer than its estimate for X.
Yet, if we take Musk's word for it, his ambitions extend far beyond a mere microblogging rivalry with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Musk considers the acquisition of Twitter as a means to expedite his vision of creating an "everything app" — a mobile app encompassing social networking, content, video, and financial services, similar to the superapps prevalent in Asia, such as WeChat.
A Visionary Plan for X's Future
In a recent update, Elon Musk revealed his bold vision for X, as reported by Bloomberg. During an all-company meeting, Musk announced that X has plans to compete with industry giants such as YouTube and LinkedIn in the future. However, X has a long way to go before it can truly challenge these established platforms.
Video content has become a top priority for Musk, leading X to introduce a live video broadcast feature and test video game streaming reminiscent of Twitch. These initial steps towards becoming a video platform are promising, but YouTube's staggering 31.9 billion visits in September, as reported by SimilarWeb, dwarf X's 955 million visits. Likewise, LinkedIn's status as the go-to professional networking site for over 950 million members seems out of reach for X at this time.
One major obstacle hampering X's progress is the fallout from Musk's takeover of the platform, which caused many advertisers to flee. This resulted in a 60% decline in U.S. advertising revenue for X, according to Musk himself. To address this issue, Musk appointed CEO Linda Yaccarino in May, an advertising executive with the potential to draw brands back to the platform. In a recent blog post, Yaccarino announced that 1,700 advertisers have returned to X in the past quarter, including 90 of the top 100 spenders from last year. However, the exact amount they are currently investing remains undisclosed.
Given that X still lacks the user base of YouTube and LinkedIn and is yet to attract significant advertising investment, it remains challenging to envision how X can truly rival these social media behemoths.
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