Do you remember this narrative? It was common right after Elon Musk took over Twitter.

Many believed that he was going to destroy the platform. Some, usually ideologically driven, feel that to be the case.

During the election in 2024, we saw the rise of Bluesky. This was a couple years after Elon bought Twitter. Due to that massive spike in users on that platform, the mantra that "X is dead" resurfaced.

After the election season wore off, Bluesky traffic plummeted. Many believe, including supporters, this was due, in part, to decisions the platform made. Whatever the reason, the numbers are clear.

But what about Musk and X? It seems that things are heading in a different direction.

The End of X?

Musk claimed that X is now the top source that people turn to for news. According to what is out there, the kickoff of the war with Iran saw a major spike in X usage.

This is what we find doing a Google search (as provided by Gemini):

User-seconds seems like an odd stat; one I had never heard of. However, in doing a search, it appears the company has consistently framed the usage in these terms, citing their volume over the last couple years.

It is a marked difference from the first days of Musk's ownership where he laid off 75% of the staff. This was something people cited as a sign the company was going under and Musk wasted $43 billion.

Of course, little did the masses know that many technology companies were in the same situation. The bloat in terms of headcount was incredible—companies had ballooned their workforce during the pandemic boom without necessarily increasing output proportionally. People were making TikTok videos showing their day at places such as Meta and Google, documenting the absurdity of having entire teams with unclear responsibilities or minimal contribution to actual product development. It was reflective of how things were in Summer Camp, where you'd have counselors and staff far exceeding what was actually needed to run operations smoothly. The difference was that summer camps eventually closed for the season; tech companies had to reckon with unsustainable burn rates. What made Musk's move so jarring wasn't that layoffs were necessary—it was the speed and scale at which he executed them, combined with the fact that the industry hadn't collectively acknowledged the problem yet. Most other companies were still in denial about their own excess capacity.

Not long after, Meta engaged in a huge round of layoffs. This was followed by many other companies who realized they overrun with people who were basically adding little to the overall output.

Network Effects

The digital world is run by network effects. This is something that Elon is keenly aware of.

X is holding strong, even gaining to a small degree. Network effects are a double-edged sword.

While it provided a bit of a moat for X, it also makes moving further ahead difficult. Overall, the numbers, while up, are not seeing massive jump. As compared to the Meta family of apps and YouTube, things still lag. Supposedly X is working on a YouTube alternative so we will see if this adds to their numbers.

The point is that Meta and Google also have network effects working in their favor. We can probably add TikTok to the list.

Mark Zuckerberg is a prime example of how powerful this is. There were a number of times when large numbers of people got upset with him and decisions that were made. We saw campaigns to dump Facebook.

Yet, in spite of that, the numbers never dropped. A few closed their accounts, mostly symbolic. The overall usage has only gone up.

Google is the same way. Many content creators are complaining about the algorithms and how view suddenly dry up. That said, we see the same for that company: ever increasing numbers.

The plan for X is to keep adding more features to get people using the platform. Musk isn't focused upon social media. The idea of X-Money is a prime example, where the idea is to pull from the world of payments.

Will this work? It is a sensible way to increase the network effects, something that is equally present in finance since that is now a digital realm.

The challenge is pulling people away from their existing financial habits. Can that be done?

Those in crypto realize, it is not an easy endeavor.