With questions nonetheless swirling round its moderation and model security efforts, and no official CEO to reassure advert companions, can X stay a viable enterprise?
The platform has been beneath a cloud since Elon Musk bought the app previously generally known as Twitter in 2022. He instantly started reforming it into the platform that he prefers, which allows all forms of controversial commentary and content material, whereas punishing opinions that he personally disagrees with.
On the identical time, Musk’s broader imaginative and prescient to transform the platform into an “every thing app,” via which individuals can conduct all types of monetary transactions on prime of their social media actions, is but to return to fruition. And with questions as soon as once more being raised in regards to the security of the platform because of misuse of its synthetic intelligence instruments, X’s prospects for elevated advert spend look like shrinking over time.
So if X isn’t earning money, will the app proceed? And has X utilization truly elevated or decreased since Musk took over?
On the primary query, as as to if X will stay a viable operation, the platform was given a lifeline in March 2025 by way of its merger with xAI. Musk’s synthetic intelligence firm has raised vital capital via funding rounds as traders banked on the way forward for AI, in addition to Elon Musk’s tech savvy, with a view to expanded alternatives for the enterprise.
The merger basically signifies that xAI now shares funding with X, which reduces the speedy want for X to generate vital revenue in its personal proper. The logic right here is that xAI wants X as its information enter stream, and thus, must be partially funded by xAI funding.
However then once more, with studies that xAI is burning via money as it really works to maintain up with different AI tasks, its capability to assist X is proscribed. That’s why the expanded merger of xAI and SpaceX, introduced in February, solidifies much more funding for X via a broader information pool for Elon Musk’s tasks.
SpaceX is anticipated to launch an IPO later this yr, at a valuation of $2 trillion. The next money injection from the providing ought to make sure that each X and xAI stay funded for the speedy future as Musk and his staff proceed to construct in direction of the following stage of their imaginative and prescient.
So X is seemingly secure for now, regardless of its personal income streams drying up. Certainly, in response to eMarketer, X’s advert income reached $2.26 billion in 2025, which is a far cry from the $4.14 billion it made in 2022, the ultimate yr earlier than Musk took over. And whereas the corporate has additionally considerably reduce prices, at these ranges, it stays a monetary unfavorable, which signifies that working X is costing Elon Musk cash, which now provides to the expanded prices of SpaceX growth.
Which then results in X’s prospects, and the potential for future advert progress.
On that entrance, X’s utilization in Europe declined within the second half of 2025, with a 15% drop in lively customers for the interval.
X doesn’t share official information on general utilization, so these utilization figures are based mostly on EU numbers, reported as a part of its DSA obligations.
X itself continues to report “file excessive” days of engagement. It has additionally shared numerous charts exhibiting that general utilization is rising. But on the identical time, the platform has acknowledged that these information charts solely replicate a portion of exercise, overlaying a subset of customers, that means that the information is skewed and certain reveals an inflated degree of utilization.
So, basically, it’s laborious to know what number of lively customers X has, or whether or not that quantity is declining.
However it’s actually not rising. In Might 2024, Elon Musk stated that X had reached 600 million month-to-month lively customers, the identical quantity it’s reporting two years later.
So whereas X additionally stated that downloads of the app are up, the precise utilization stats don’t replicate this, which signifies that these new customers both aren’t sticking round, or X is shedding customers as quick because it’s gaining them.
In the meantime, Meta’s Threads is as much as 400 million month-to-month actives, and that quantity is rising quick. This might see Threads supplant X because the main real-time social media platform very quickly. That additionally makes Threads a extra interesting choice for advert companions, particularly as X continues to courtroom controversy. It appears unlikely that many manufacturers are going to be upping their X advert spend anytime quickly.
Which in the end means X stays in a limbo, of types, propped up by funding to Elon Musk’s different tasks however unable to construct a viable enterprise in its personal proper.
What does that imply for the way forward for X?
Properly, it’s seemingly all tied in with the potential for SpaceX, which can be tied into Musk’s different companies, together with Tesla, in addition to any future prospects. So long as SpaceX is getting cash, X can be funded, and which means the platform will proceed to perform even when customers abandon it.
But when utilization declines, that may have broader impacts on xAI when it comes to information consumption. As such, the viability of X stays a related concern on a bigger scale. Although how a lot concern there’s will seemingly dictate how a lot funding X sees, and the way a lot X is ready to replace and enhance its app.
