Want to See the 'Pure Blue Sky'... 15 Million People Who Left Musk's 'X' Rush to This Place

Mass Exodus of X Users After US Presidential Election
Alternative SNS Bluesky Sees Surge in New Sign-ups
X Owner Musk Takes Charge of Government Efficiency Department

After the U.S. presidential election, a large number of users have left the social networking service X (formerly Twitter) and moved to another SNS called BlueSky. On the 16th (local time), the British Guardian reported, "In the weeks following the U.S. presidential election, BlueSky's new sign-ups exceeded 1 million."

BlueSky has been rapidly growing, ranking first in downloads on the U.S. App Store chart last week. The total number of users surged from 9 million last month to over 15 million recently. This is believed to be influenced by Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and owner of X, who contributed to the victory of President-elect Donald Trump. In fact, it is known that 115,000 X users deactivated their accounts the day after the election.

During the election period, Musk publicly supported Trump and was appointed head of the "Government Efficiency Department" in the second Trump administration. He declared his support for Trump on X in July and hosted a two-hour audio show interviewing Trump in August. On election day, the 5th, he held an audio town hall appealing to his 203 million followers to vote for Trump.

Analysts suggest that Musk's significant relaxation of harmful content censorship on X, citing freedom of expression, also had an impact. According to CNN, after the U.S. presidential election, sexist language surged on X, causing many users to leave, and the core advertising business is reportedly collapsing. Some influencers on X have also switched to BlueSky. Among journalists, Charlie Warzel of The Atlantic, Mara Gay of The New York Times (NYT), and former CNN anchor Don Lemon are included.

Additionally, the Guardian announced last week that "far-right conspiracy theories and racism were frequently promoted" on X, leading to article postings and account suspensions. Spain's daily newspaper La Vanguardia also stated that "X has turned into a platform where conspiracy theories and misinformation spread," announcing similar measures.

BlueSky is considered an alternative SNS to X, as it gained 2.6 million new users within days when X was blocked in Brazil last August due to controversies over fake news. It started as an internal organization created by Jack Dorsey, former CEO of Twitter (the predecessor of X) in 2019, who aimed to develop an "open standard for decentralized social media," and became an independent company in 2021.