Instagram's Threads gets 35 million new users this month

Nearly 35 million new users have flocked to Instagram’s Threads this month as the Meta platform seeks to capture users leaving X and keep an edge over emerging platform Bluesky.

The growth rate for Threads ramped up in mid-November, with 20 million of this month’s new users signing up over the past 10 days, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said. About 15 million users signed up between Nov. 1 and 14.

Axios first reported the surge in users for Threads.

The burst comes as thousands of users have quit or deactivated their accounts on X, the social media network owned by Elon Musk, citing a “toxic” or “disturbing” environment.

A number of departing users have included prominent figures on the left, some of whom have blamed Musk’s leadership and promotion of certain political stances.

President-elect Trump’s win and his alliance with Musk have intensified those concerns, repelling users who have grown uncomfortable or exhausted with the political climate on X. 

While it is unclear how many of Threads’s new users are those leaving X, it follows a new trend in social media of users dispersing themselves among different platforms.

Bluesky, another microblogging rival to X, has also seen a surge in usership this month. The platform’s total user base surged by more than 500 percent after the election and is up to more than 22.5 million users as of Tuesday.

Bluesky membership still lags far behind X and Threads.

Threads, which might now be a stronger rival to X, has about 275 million active users, a company spokesperson confirmed, while Musk’s site reportedly has around 588 million accounts.

Meta’s Threads rolled out a series of changes over the past week in what was seen as an attempt to keep an edge over Bluesky.

The changes included a new custom feed feature, which gives users the ability to build their feeds around the topics and people they are most interested in. Bluesky lets users make their own lists and feeds and set their own content moderation preferences.

The platform also rolled out a few “long-overdue improvements” to its search and trending now features and its algorithm.

Threads was released in June 2023 as a rival app to X, but within months its user base plummeted more than 80 percent.