Bluesky Sees 700,000 New Users Post-Election

In the wake of the recent U.S. election, social media platform Bluesky has gained over 700,000 new users, with many migrating from X, formerly Twitter. This surge is largely attributed to users’ concerns over misinformation and offensive content on X: since September, Bluesky’s user base has grown significantly from 9 million to 14.5 million, with the majority of new users being former X users coming from North America and the UK.

It’s generally accepted that a large part of this transition over is driven by politics, which makes sense given this sudden push after the election. With X becoming more and more geared towards Elon Musk’s personal political feelings, more liberal or left-leaning users have moved to Bluesky instead, which has naturally resulted in that platform’s general user base mostly sharing a similar general political stance.

Notable figures have joined Bluesky during this recent migration, including Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and NYU professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who quickly gained thousands of followers on the platform. While Bluesky’s user base remains smaller than Meta’s Threads, which reported 275 million active users in November, Bluesky has introduced new features, such as direct messaging and video support, that put in par with other platforms.

Bluesky’s growth has only escalated in recent months, with the platform having hit 13 million users in a relatively short timeframe. This surge of new users comes not long after a recent 1.2 million user influx from X – and right on time, given that the platform is already looking into a paid subscription feature. Despite “growing pains” from rapid user expansion, the platform is in a prime position to keep rapidly growing in the near future – but only if it manages to stand on its own instead of always being labeled an X alternative.