The percentage of Americans using X since Elon Musk bought it has slumped, with the controversial social media platform having been overtaken by Reddit, according to new research.
Musk, 54, bought X—then known as Twitter—for $44 billion in October 2022 when it was already declining in popularity, according to “nonpartisan fact tank” Pew Research Center, which examined trends between 2021 and 2025.
Despite making a raft of changes, including a new name and the introduction of AI bot Grok, the world’s richest man has been unable to stop the drop. Under the tech billionaire, X has also faced allegations that it promotes hateful and damaging content, which led some advertisers to walk away.
Pew says that just 21 percent of Americans now use X, compared to 25 percent in 2021.
Over the same period, Reddit—where users known as “Redditors” share content, such as links, text, images, and videos, that the community votes up and down—has grown in popularity.
The news aggregator site has jumped to 26 percent from 19 percent. Roughly half of 18–29 year-olds now say they use it.
YouTube remains ubiquitous, being used by 84 percent of adults, and dominates both 18–29s (95 percent) and 30–49s (92 percent). It is followed by Facebook (71 percent) and Instagram (50 percent).
TikTok continues to build its audience, particularly among under-30s. WhatsApp is also on the rise, with 32 percent of U.S. adults using it, up from 24 percent in 2021.
The report says the veterans of social media—YouTube (2005), Facebook (2004), and Instagram (2010)—benefit from habit, while X (2006) and Reddit (2005) serve smaller, more specific communities.
Threads (15 percent), Bluesky (6 percent), and Truth Social (1 percent) remain niche among younger users.
Pew surveyed 5,022 U.S. adults between Feb. 5 and June 18, 2025, using a nationally representative method. Methodologically, Pew cautions that the 2021 data collection was phone-only, whereas the 2025 fieldwork combined web, mail, and phone via address-based sampling.
The Daily Beast has contacted X for comment.
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