Musk’s acquisition of Twitter had sparked fears and concerns that users would leave the micro-blogging site, and reports of paid DMs and a costlier Twitter Blue added fuel to the fire. However, despite several advertisers putting a temporary halt on ads on Twitter, the social media company claimed that its usage has hit an all-time high since Musk came to the helm.
According to an internal FAQ and a report by The Verge, the monetizable daily user (mDAU) base of Twitter has grown by over 20%, while the US – which is Twitter’s largest market – clocked an even faster rate of growth. As per the internal FAQ, Twitter added more than 15 million mDAUs to cross the quarter-billion mark.
Musk, whose Twitter bio reads “Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator,” tweeted that the usage on the popular micro-blogging platform was “at an all-time high.” However, he did not clarify how he defines usage. In a reply to another tweet, the billionaire informed that ever since Musk had announced the deal to acquire Twitter (at $44 billion or $54.20 per share), the number of users on Twitter had “increased significantly” across the globe, and as the platform moved to become “the most reliable source of truth, it will be indispensable.”
The mass exodus of users from the platform, as feared by many, has not occurred, but considering that we are still in the early days of Twitter under Musk’s leadership, it is not off the table. And while Musk is not one to mince words, especially on Twitter, the statistics are on his side for now. This month saw daily downloads increase by 28% when compared to October and 46% when compared to September, while November 3 saw 636,770 daily downloads – the highest since May.
Musk’s current claims come after Twitter has already been steadily adding to its mDAU base. It reported having 237.8 mDAUs earlier for the second quarter, along with a yearly growth rate of 16.6%. However, these numbers, even with the 15 million it claims to have added since then, are not enough to melt Twitter’s servers, as Musk “fears.” However, even as the statistics show that users are not leaving the platform, and instead using it all the more, it seems that advertisers do not share their confidence and despite Musk’s assurances ahead of the sealing of the Twitter acquisition, they are collectively leaving the platform.
Musk tweeted that Twitter has already witnessed a “massive drop in revenue” due to “activist groups pressuring advertisers,” even as they “did everything we could to appease the activists.” Advertisers, with concerns that their ads might pop up beside “objectionable” content amidst looser content moderation policies, have already fled the platform. Musk, in retaliation, responded by threatening to publicly disgrace, “name and shame” those ad clients who have fled the platform. Considering that ads make up a significant portion of Twitter’s revenue, Musk’s twitchiness is hardly unsurprising.
The FAQ also formed that the levels of hate speech on the platform remain within “historical norms” and represented 0.25-0.45% of “tweets per day among hundreds of millions.”
