Bluesky Attracts Millions As Users Leave Musk's X

Social media platform Bluesky is adding millions of users as people flee X after Donald Trump was elected U.S. President and as an upcoming change to the terms of service threatens to complicate legal challenges for the Elon Musk-owned platform.

According to Reuters, Bluesky has gained about 2.5 million new users in the past week, raising its total users to more than 16 million, it said on Thursday. It is among a slew of apps looking to replace the platform formerly known as Twitter after Musk's takeover.

"We're seeing record-high activity levels across all different forms of engagement: likes, follows, new accounts, etc, and we're on track to add 1 million new users in one day alone," Bluesky said in a statement.

Several well-known organizations and personalities, including the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate, British news publisher the Guardian and former CNN anchor Don Lemon have said they were leaving X due to concerns about the platform's content and the looming terms change.

X was called out by misinformation experts during the election for playing a central role in enabling the spread of false information about the critical battleground states.

On Nov. 6, as news broke that Musk ally Trump won the presidency, X attracted 46.5 million visits in the U.S. - more than any day in the past year and 38% higher than an average day in recent months, according to analytics firm SimilarWeb.

But more than 115,000 U.S. web visitors deactivated their X accounts – the most since Musk bought the platform, SimilarWeb data showed.

Bluesky's website, meanwhile, attracted around 1.2 million visitors on Nov.6, more than Meta Platforms-owned (META.O), opens new tab Threads, which had around 950,000 visitors. But Threads app had more visitors than that of Bluesky.