Zuckerberg's Threads starts 2026 ahead of Musk's X in user count

Meta’s text-based social media platform Threads has outpaced its main competitor, X, which was previously known as Twitter. The platform has around 320 million active users and an average of 143 million active users on mobile as of January 2026, according to Forbes, citing Similarweb data.

In December 2025, more than 30 million new users signed up for Threads. The platform keeps growing quickly as Elon Musk’s X has trouble holding onto its position with several policy changes and Elon Musk’s controversial streak since he shelled out $44 billion to buy the platform.

The report also claims that Brands are moving toward Threads’ more advertiser-friendly environment as X faces user and ad revenue declines amid leadership and moderation concerns.

Zuckerberg’s Threads is riding the hot hand

On January 3, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Threads now has 320 million active users, surpassing X. He emphasized that the platform’s growth was purely organic with no aggressive marketing campaigns. Also, the integration with Instagram makes it easy to onboard existing Instagram users.

Following the acquisition by Elon Musk, X has been losing daily active users. Estimates suggest that X has seen a decline of about 11.9% year-over-year as daily active users in January, while Threads has increased its active user count by about 38%.

One of the major reasons for the growth of Threads is that it provides a more advertiser-friendly platform compared to X. Meta also continues to refine Threads’ features by addressing user feedback and directly competing with X’s functionality.

Analysts project that Threads could generate about $11.3 billion in revenue.

Brands are moving away from X due to the growing discomfort around Musk’s leadership, along with concerns around content moderation. About 68% of X’s revenue is generated from ads and in 2024, it generated $2.5 billion in revenue from ads, which represents a 13.7% decline year-over-year.

X isn’t the only platform in decline. Bluesky, which came out as a direct competitor to X has been shedding users. Bluesky grew from a user base of about 10 million to about 40 million in late 2025. However, Bluesky’s daily active users are down to about 3.6 million, representing a 44.4% year-over-year decline.

Zuckerberg and Musk’s competition plays out on the social media landscape

Zuckerberg and Musk have a rivalry that has played out publicly at times. It even escalated to the point of a cage match in 2023. However, their real rivalry has been in the tech domain, where they often find themselves sponsoring competing causes.

Threads’ growth challenges X’s historical dominance in real-time conversation and news distribution. Both the US and international user counts have been declining since 2024, even though there are spikes in usage during major news events.

However, for all its problems, X still has more daily active users on mobile in the United States, with 21.2 million compared to Threads’ 19.5 million.

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