Elon Musk says user signups at all-time high, brags features of “everything app”

Twitter Inc Chief Executive Elon Musk says new user signups to the social media platform are at an “all-time high” as he struggles with a mass exodus of advertisers and users fleeing to other platforms over concerns about verification and hate speech.

Signups were averaging over two million per day in the last seven days as of Nov. 16, up 66% compared to the same week in 2021, and Musk said in a tweet late on Saturday.

He also said that user active minutes were at a record high, averaging nearly 8 billion active minutes per day in the last seven days as of November 15, an increase of 30% compared to the same week last year.

Hate speech impressions decreased as of November 13 compared to October last year. According to Musk, reported impersonations on the platform spiked earlier this month, before and in the wake of the Twitter Blue launch.

Twitter Inc Chief Executive Elon Musk says new user signups to the social media platform are at an “all-time high,” as he struggles with a mass exodus of advertisers and users fleeing to other platforms over concerns about verification and hate speech. Rachel Graham reports.

Musk, who also runs rocket company SpaceX, brain-chip startup Neuralink, and tunneling firm the Boring Company, has said that buying Twitter would speed up his ambition to create an “everything app” called X.

Musk’s “Twitter 2.0 The Everything App” will have features like encrypted direct messages (DMs), long-form tweets, and payments, according to the tweet.

In another tweet early on Sunday, Musk said he sees a “path to Twitter exceeding a billion monthly users in 12 to 18 months.”

Advertisers on Twitter, including big companies such as General Motors, Mondelez International, and Volkswagen AG, have paused advertising on the platform as they grapple with the new boss.

Musk has said that Twitter was experiencing a “massive drop in revenue” from the advertiser retreat, blaming a coalition of civil rights groups that have been pressing the platform’s top advertisers to take action if he did not protect content moderation.

Activists are urging Twitter’s advertisers to issue statements about pulling their ads off the social media platform after Musk lifted the ban on tweets by former U.S. president Donald Trump.

Hundreds of Twitter employees are believed to have quit the beleaguered company, following an ultimatum by Musk that staffers sign up for “long hours at high intensity” or leave.

Earlier in November, the company laid off half its workforce, with teams responsible for communications, content curation, human rights, and machine learning ethics gutted, as well as some product and engineering teams.

(This story has been corrected to replace the inaccurate word “impersonations” in paragraph 4 with “impressions”)