X's tumultuous first year under Elon Musk: mobile DAUs down 16% from October 2022 to September 2023, app downloads fell after X rebrand, and investor markdowns
Wall Street Journal
Context & Ripple Effects
X’s first year under Elon Musk combined weaker mobile daily use, softer post-rebrand downloads and investor valuation markdowns—three measures that put pressure on both audience momentum and confidence in the business.
X enters its second year under Musk with a smaller mobile daily audience and weaker app-acquisition signal, reducing the immediate scale it can present to advertisers and creators.
Investor markdowns reset expectations for X’s value and increase scrutiny of whether its rebrand and monetization changes can reverse engagement losses.
Second-order effects
Lower engagement and app downloads can compound advertising weakness: marketers have less reason to expand spending while X has less audience growth to offset reduced ad demand.
The platform’s creator-revenue-sharing effort becomes more important as a retention tool, but payout delays can make it harder to establish trust in a subscription- and creator-led monetization mix.
Third-order effects
If audience contraction and ad softness persist together, X’s business model will face a structural test: whether subscriptions and creator incentives can support a platform historically dependent on advertising scale.
The case highlights the broader execution challenge in creator monetization—new revenue programs must be dependable enough to retain suppliers of content before they can meaningfully diversify revenue.
The trend: Social platforms are increasingly being judged on whether subscription and creator monetization can close the gap when advertising scale and user growth weaken.
Elon Musk trying hard to think up a joke as terrible as “let that sink in” as he carried an actual sink into Twitter HQ on the eve of the first anniversary of the acquisition.
The banks that Elon Musk owes $13 billion used to purchase Twitter are trying to sell the debt and expect to take a 15% discount doing so. These sounds optimistic to me. It looks quite clear that Twitter/X is headed to bankruptcy and if so, anyone buying that debt isn't going t…
43) Tomorrow will mark 1 year since #ElonMusk took control of #Twitter, what has he wroth? — .While #X is private, it is generally agreed that the company is now worth 1/3 of the acquisition price, an implosion of $30 billion in value …
So, the Ex-Bird Site's active user base is dropping like a stone. But at least that made it infinitely more accommodating the worst people on the planet who are willing to pay for clout. [embedded post]
We have to see this in context: this is an enormous success not just for Musk, but for most who supported the deal. A year later it's harder to know what's true, harder to hold power accountable, harder to bring attention to injustice. An autocrat's dream come true. Everyone b…
Linda Yaccarino's blog post was quickly deleted after apparently going live prematurely (anniversary is tomorrow). For a brief moment, just the headline was still visible, leading to the irony of a title heralding a “bright future” followed by empty space... [image]
ok everyone get ready to pop the champagne because today marks 1 year in 🪩🍾 over the last 12 months, we shipped 100+ features in total, most of which we've built in public and with a tight feedback loop, giving you all the chance to weigh in, suggest ideas and help us...
I'm convinced that this was the intended effect of the implemented changes. The new ownership regime wants to make this place less useful for sharing information and connecting with each other. WSJ 🔗 https://www.wsj.com/... Apple News 🔗 https://apple.news/... [image]
Musk gets to benefit from the long-term nature of private equity. Which is good for Musk because, in the short term, his Twitter/X deal has been a steaming pile of blue bird poop. https://www.axios.com/... [image]
Worth noting that many leading Finance Twitter accounts are 100% sure that Twitter is vastly superior now. They keep congratulating E on what a terrific job he has done.
Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of Elon Musk's $44 billion takeover of Twitter, which also is one of the largest-ever private equity deals. It's not going so well. https://www.axios.com/... [image]
When Elon Musk acquired Twitter, he pledged to turn it into an “everything app.” One year in, much of his vision has yet to play out. https://www.wsj.com/...