Twitter claims user growth hit ‘all-time highs’ after Elon Musk’s takeover

Growth of daily active users on Twitter has reportedly spiked 20% in the first week of Elon Musk’s taking ownership of the social media platform, according to an internal document.   

The document claimed that in the first full week of Musk’s private ownership, daily active user growth hit “all-time highs” and crossed 250 million, The Verge reported, citing the internal document that was distributed to the sales team for conversations with advertisers who are wary about their presence on the platform.  

Twitter had 237.8 million monetisable daily active users at the end of the second quarter, according to the last earnings report before Musk took the company private. 

The news site mentioned that Musk sought to reassure advertisers that the platform will not become a “free-for-all hellscape”, saying that Twitter “aspires to be the most respected advertising platform in the world that strengthens your brand and grows your enterprise”.  

In an email sent on Monday to some advertisers, Twitter said that growth in its monetisable active daily users (mDAUs), a metric that counts the number of logged-in users to whom the platform shows advertising, has hit “all-time highs” last week, accelerating to 20% from 15% in the second quarter. The email also said that “Twitter’s largest market, the US, is growing even more quickly,”   

Musk who closed the deal to buy the platform for $44 billion on October 27 tweeted: “Twitter usage is at an all-time high lol. I just hope the servers don’t melt!”

The news comes at a time Musk is facing an uphill battle to persuade large brands such as Mondelez, Carlsberg, United Airlines, General Motors, Volkswagen and General Mills to resume advertising, with Twitter relying on adverts for the majority of its revenue. Brands are reportedly 'concerned' that Musk will weaken content moderation and get rid of permanent bans for violations.  

Twitter also said in the email that brand advertisers “will now have an additional “Official” label beneath their name upon Twitter Blue’s relaunch this week” which will likely be on Wednesday.   

The company is rolling out a new version of its premium subscription service Twitter Blue for $7.99, which will allow users to pay for the “Blue Tick” verifications that are currently available only to companies, politicians, celebrities and journalists.  

On Friday, Musk claimed that Twitter “has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists”.   

He has tweeted a poll asking if advertisers should support free speech or political “correctness”, and threatened brands that had pulled out advertising on the platform.   

Meanwhile, last week Sarah Personette, Twitter’s chief customer officer, who was their main point of contact at the company has also left as part of the senior management exodus.