Tech billionaire Elon Musk on Thursday became the first person to reach 200 million followers on X social media platform, which he acquired in October 2022 for a whopping $44 billion. The X owner is currently followed by former US President Barack Obama at 131.9 million followers, and famous footballer Cristiano Ronaldo at 113.2 million followers (as of October 3).
Popular singer Justin Bieber is at the fourth position with 110.3 million followers and Rihanna is in the fifth spot with 108.4 million followers. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently crossed the 100 million mark in the world — which was hailed by Musk — and has 102.4 million followers as of now.
Musk recently said that X now has more than 600 million monthly active users (MAUs), and around 300 million daily active users (DAUs). Reports surfaced recently, claiming that most of Musk’s followers “are fake and the count is bloated by millions of new, inactive accounts”. However, there has been no official confirmation about the claim.
According to the Tesla and SpaceX owner, X social media platform has become a group chat for Earth, with maximum traffic coming from all over the world. “X is the group chat for Earth,” Musk had posted. The tech billionaire aims to make it an “everything app” where people can post movies and TV shows and also make digital payments. Musk also claimed that X usage in the US has reached an all-time high.
Earlier this week, global investment firm Fidelity cut the value of its holding in Musk-run X (formerly Twitter) by a massive 78.7 per cent, which implies that the X social media platform is likely valued at just $9.4 billion.
According to the asset manager, X is now valued at less than a quarter of its $44 billion purchase price (at August end), reports TechCrunch which cited its filings. X, Fidelity or Musk did not comment on the report based on regulatory disclosures.