Musk Claims X Sets New Usage Records Almost Every Week
Elon Musk stated that X's usage is reaching historical highs almost every week; he did not disclose specific metrics corresponding to "usage," nor did he provide daily active users, monthly active users, usage duration, post volume, or year-on-year data.
X's public page confirms that Musk also mentioned the platform's App Store downloads reached 103 million in August, setting a new monthly record, but download counts and usage are not the same metric: downloads reflect installation demand and do not directly prove user retention, usage frequency, or simultaneous growth in ad sellable duration.
"Usage" may include active accounts, daily usage duration, content browsing, video playback, post interactions, message sending, or Grok usage, among other metrics. Since X did not specify the statistical scope, measurement period, whether bots and repeat visits were excluded, or which historical period it was compared to, outsiders cannot independently verify the scale and sustainability of the "almost weekly new highs."
X was acquired and privatized by Elon Musk in 2022, subsequently renamed X, and has since adjusted its content moderation, subscription, advertising, creator revenue sharing, long video, payment, and AI product strategies. If usage continues to increase, the most direct commercial value is enhancing ad inventory, subscription conversion, and Grok's distribution entry; however, these revenue indicators have not been disclosed alongside this statement.
The platform has also recently promoted open-sourcing its recommendation algorithm and continuous updates. X Open Source claims to have updated the recommendation algorithm daily for over two weeks and has deployed its first external GitHub pull request online; this project may improve creators' expectations regarding distribution rules, but its actual contribution to usage growth has not been publicly tested with A/B testing or retention data.
For advertisers, what truly needs verification is not the description of "historical highs," but auditable audience size, brand safety, ad impressions, completion rates, click or conversion rates, target audience coverage, and return on investment. If X cannot disclose or provide these verifiable metrics to advertisers, generalized usage statements are unlikely to translate directly into higher ad pricing.
In market mechanisms, potential buyers include brands, users, and enterprise clients purchasing X ads, subscription services, developer interfaces, and AI features; X sells distributable attention, ad impressions, and service capabilities. If usage duration and active users increase, advertisers and creators are more likely to invest budgets and content into the platform; conversely, if growth is only from short-term news events, trending content, or re-downloads, funding will not flow steadily into advertising and subscriptions. Beneficiaries are X, which has traffic entry, recommendation distribution, and ad inventory, while competitors like Threads, Reddit, TikTok, and Meta products are under pressure to compete for real-time information, creators, and AI distribution scenarios.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Musk's statements on X continue the growth narrative since the platform's privatization: first proving distribution recovery with "record downloads," then demonstrating user attention recovery with "record usage." During the Twitter era, publicly traded companies were required to disclose monetizable daily active user metrics in financial reports; privatized X no longer bears the same public financial disclosure obligations, leading external investors and advertisers to rely more on the company's self-reports, third-party traffic estimates, and ad performance results to gauge business strength. The lack of transparency in metrics does not prove the statements wrong but increases market skepticism regarding metric selection and data comparability.
In terms of capital pathways, X's commercialization must complete three transformations: app store installations converting to account logins, logins converting to sustained content consumption, and sustained consumption converting to ad impressions, Premium subscriptions, creator transactions, or Grok paid usage. Meta monetizes user data across multiple products through Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and advertising technology; TikTok converts viewing time into ad inventory through high-frequency short video recommendations. X has real-time information streams, news events, and a network of high-impact accounts, but its revenue recovery relies on advertisers' trust in brand safety, content environment, and conversion effectiveness, rather than solely on download numbers.
Historically, Threads quickly gained a large number of registrations at launch through the Instagram account system, and Clubhouse also experienced short-term usage peaks due to scarce invitations and celebrity traffic; both illustrate that growth metrics only translate into lasting commercial value once user relationships, content supply, and daily usage habits form a closed loop. X's open-sourcing of its recommendation algorithm, Grok integration, and video strategy can be seen as attempts to establish this closed loop: algorithms determine content retention, AI tools increase functional usage, and creator incentives maintain supply, allowing advertising and subscriptions to gain a sustainable revenue basis.
This represents a transfer of pricing power. The income pricing power of social platforms is not determined by registration numbers or monthly downloads but by verifiable, sustainable, and sellable attention. Users allocate their time to the platform, which divides that time into ad slots, subscription rights, and transaction entry points; creators determine supply quality, and advertisers decide whether to allocate budgets. If X can solidify "new usage highs" into stable retention and ad conversion, it can enhance its bargaining power with advertisers; if the data cannot translate into auditable business results, pricing power will remain with the brands and agencies controlling the budgets.
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws
Downloads create entry points, retention creates pricing power
Data can self-report, cash flow must be verified
Traffic peaks, commercialization is the endpoint