Despite his vast fortunes, Elon Musk has an incredible ability to turn an enterprise into radioactive waste. Tesla, for example, has suffered unprecedented brand damage owing to Musk’s rampage through the federal government, while the Boring Company is becoming a nearly $1 billion disaster.
Another looming case in point: the user base on X-formerly-Twitter has been stagnating miserably since its acquisition by the billionaire in October of 2022. Despite Musk’s own lofty promises to turn the platform into the “Everything App” — a one-stop shop for short form videos, messaging, and even banking — data from the last three years shows X has instead been languishing under his reign.
New survey results from the Pew Research Center show the long-term results of Musk’s control over the platform: over the last year, the percentage of Americans who say they use X has been nearly flat, down to 22 percent in 2024 to 21 percent today.
Compare that to other platforms like TikTok, which grew four percent over the same period, or Instagram, which grew three percent, and it’s clear that Musk’s everything app is floundering when it comes to snagging new users.
Demographically, that drop for X seems to be made up of mostly young users aged 18 through 29, who are far and away the largest users of social media. From 2024 to 2025, the number of 18-to 29-year-olds using X fell from 42 percent to 33 percent — exactly the sort of demographic decline, in other words, that Musk purports to be so concerned about society-wide.
Pew’s data actually sounds optimistic compared to other research. From the second quarter of 2024 to 2025, another dataset showed X hemorrhaging users by a grim 10 percent year-over-year.
With each passing day it becomes less likely Musk will ever delivers the extravagant features and vibrant community he once promised. And given the rise of far-right filth on X under the billionaire, some bizarro banking features probably wouldn’t bring the users back anyway.
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