Did Musk screw up X after all? Well, not long ago the market research agency Similarweb issued a report,It shows that the DAU of Meta’s social media platform Threads on mobile has exceeded X (formerly Twitter).As of January 7, 2026, the DAU of mobile Threads has reached 141.5 million, while the DAU of X is 125 million.
If the timeline is stretched out longer, Threads’ overtake actually came earlier.
Just look at the data and you will know that in September last year, when Threads’ daily active users reached 130 million, it had already exceeded X.
Although on the web side, X still maintains the lead, on the mobile side, Threads' growth curve is almost all the way upward.
Looking back at X , the overall trend seems not to be good.
But before discussing what happened to X, there may still be many friends who are confused about this Threads.
To put it simply, this is a text interactive community launched by Meta in 2023. When Zuckerberg launched Threads, the purpose was also very pure, just for Twitter.
We also wrote about it when it was launched. There has been no buzz in the past few years and we thought it would be over after the popularity was over. Unexpectedly, the daily activity has surpassed X now.
What has happened in the past few years is indeed worthy of a careful examination.
In fact, since the birth of Threads, the data has been ridiculously good.
In just 5 days since the app was launched, the number of users has exceeded 100 million. No app can match this level of user growth. As of August 2025, Threads' global monthly active users exceeded 400 million, doubling the number of users in one year.
But it should be noted that Threads can take off not because of how many innovations the product has or how amazing its functions are.
A more core reason is that Threads has a good father, and this father is still feeding food into his mouth like crazy.
Meta's move is very cunning. They didn’t treat Threads as an independent new app at all, but directly designed it as a companion app for Instagram.
You cannot register a separate Threads account, you must use an Instagram account to log in.
In the early days, this strong binding even reached the level of abnormality. If you want to cancel your Threads account, you will have to delete your Instagram account as well.
In other words, Threads can painlessly inherit Instagram’s huge account system. You just need to come over, and the accounts are all universal.
Data shows that as of January 2026, 96% of Threads users are also Instagram users.
Not only that, your original social circles and interest tags on Instagram will also be packaged.
In order to provide Threads with a steady stream of blood transfusions, Meta also inserted Threads’ posts into Instagram’s recommended information flow.
Therefore, we do not rule out the possibility that part of Threads’ current daily activity is actually clicks “cheated” by these information flows.
But in any case, it is precisely because of this strong binding with Instagram that Threads can stand directly on the shoulders of giants and complete the counterattack against X.
Shichao also downloaded Threads and played it for a few days. Let’s talk about our experience.
The entire interface of Threads looks very simple. The text is mainly pure text, with some pictures and texts occasionally interspersed. There are no annoying advertisements, and the burden of browsing is very light.
The content also gives people a different feeling from X. There is no big news here, and there are not so many people who know how to guide the country. The screen is full of random thoughts about my life, my views on things, or some topics that can arouse discussion.
However, this peaceful and peaceful atmosphere is not all the result of users.
According to foreign media reports, Instagram’s head Adam Mosseri stated that Threads’ goal was to create a “less angry place for conversation” that would not encourage political or hard news content.
But one thing is that because of the official attitude, Threads has begun to change its flavor to some extent.
Let’s take a look at today’s other protagonist, X.
In more than a year after being acquired by Musk, the number of daily active users of (Data as of February 2024)
Users are running, and funder fathers are running faster.
Because of Musk’s uncontrollable mouth, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery Channel, Comcast, and Lionsgate Entertainment have stopped advertising on X.
Although it was restored later, the content ecology on X does not seem to be optimistic.
As early as 2024, the famous British media "The Guardian" announced that it would no longer post on X.
The reason is sharp. They bluntly stated that X is a "toxic" social media platform and believe that Musk can use its influence to shape political discourse.
There is much to say about this "toxic" environment.
After Musk took over X, he directly overturned the original identity authentication system and launched a simple and crude new policy: users only need to pay $8 per month to obtain Blue V certification.
This change is tantamount to changing Blue V from a trust endorsement to a skin that can be obtained by paying money.
Also because of the proliferation of Blue V accounts, false information began to grow wildly.
Someone pretended to be the official account of the American pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and tweeted that "insulin is free." As a result, Eli Lilly's stock price fell and its market value evaporated by about $14 billion.
Similar things have happened many times, but what is worse now may be that Grok, which Musk is proud of, has caused a big mess.
Because of generating false pornographic content, even involving minors, Grok has been banned by many countries, including Malaysia and Indonesia. The United Kingdom and Canada are also investigating related content generated by Grok.
At the end of last year, the EU had just issued a sky-high fine of 120 million euros for three violations including X's Blue V certification. As a result, less than a month later, it was ready to strike hard at X and Grok.
X was forced to stand up and announce measures to stop Grok from generating pornographic images.
So in general, X is really confusing now. In addition to false information and pornographic content flying all over the sky, you can often see replies from robots under the comment area.
The decline in user experience actually not only brought about the growth of Threads, but also unexpectedly made Bluesky popular.
Bluesky was originally an internal incubation project of Twitter, but later became independent. And because it is very similar to early Twitter, it is welcomed by some users.
The most exaggerated time is that after the 2024 US election, Bluesky added 2.5 million new users in a week, and the download ranking in the App Store also jumped from the top 100 to the top.
Having said all this, we don’t necessarily have to rank these platforms above each other.
Although Threads has overtaken the data on the mobile side, we cannot ignore another fact: on the Web side, and in those scenes where people watch breaking news, X still has its irreplaceability.
According to a Pew Research report, most X users say getting news is their primary or secondary reason for using the platform, and about half say they get news on X regularly.
It can be argued that the use of social media is becoming increasingly fragmented.
For those who want to know the dynamics of news events as soon as possible, choose X. There is the first-hand information you need, but you also have to endure its confusion. And those who prefer to communicate and share choose Threads.
Of course it can also be Bluesky, Xiaohongshu, or other social media platforms.
In this process, no one really eliminated anyone, it was just that everyone took what they needed and went where they should go.