X’s daily user base dropped 10% in the year leading up to Linda Yaccarino stepping down as CEO on Wednesday, according to data shared with TheWrap from Sensor Tower, a market intelligence firm.
That dip puts Elon Musk’s social media platform at 217 million daily users. Yaccarino took over as chief executive in June 2023, about eight months after Musk purchased the platform formerly known as Twitter; because X is now a private company, it does not report its daily or monthly users.
Representatives for X did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
Still, Sensor Tower’s report also noted that, despite the drop-off in users since last year when the 2024 presidential race was driving the news, X has been “displaying signs of renewed strength with notable advertisers.” Disney, Comcast, and Apple are among the big-name companies that have returned to advertising on X in the last year.
Increasing ad revenue, along with trimming costs and headcount, was a key focus for Yaccarino when she joined X in 2023. She took the reins after leaving NBCUniversal, where she was the chairman of global advertising and partnerships.
Sensor Tower further noted that despite the user dip, X is still 65% bigger than Instagram’s Threads and 10 times larger than Bluesky when it comes to daily users. X users spend much more time on the platform as well — 31 minutes per day, according to ST, compared to eight minutes per day for Threads users.
Yaccarino announced she was leaving X on Wednesday morning, a day after Grok, X’s artificial intelligence model, went haywire and started posting antisemitic and pro-Hitler responses.
X’s valuation took a big hit in the two years after Musk bought the platform for $44 billion in 2022, with Fidelity valuing the company at $12.32 billion late last year. However, its valuation bounced back to $44 billion earlier this year, right before it was acquired by xAI, Musk’s AI platform, in March.
Yaccarino, soon after joining the company, said she was committed to what Musk called his “Freedom of speech, not freedom of reach” approach, where the platform was less focused on censoring and kicking off users than under its previous leadership.
“X is enabling an information independence that’s uncomfortable for some people,” she said in 2023. “We’re a platform that allows people to make their own decisions.”
Critics, meanwhile, have said X has become more toxic than ever under its more relaxed approach to censorship. Many users ditched X after the 2024 election and headed to Bluesky, which some left-leaning users dubbed “Blue Heaven,” in protest of Musk and his support of President Donald Trump.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, who primarily covers Tesla, told TheWrap that Yaccarino “did a great job and was a key part of the foundation of X.” He added that she “will be tough shoes to fill.”
Another Wall Street analyst who spoke to TheWrap on Wednesday afternoon said it “isn’t a surprise” that Yaccarino decided to leave X. “She had a very hard job from the start that was made worse by some of Elon’s actions to limit content moderation and harass advertisers,” they said.
Yaccarino, in her X post announcing her departure on Wednesday morning, said she is “immensely grateful” to Musk for “entrusting me with the responsibility of protecting free speech” during her time at the company.
“Thank you for your contributions,” Musk posted in response to Yaccarino, about 40 minutes after she announced her exit.
