In March 2025, xAI acquired X in an all-stock deal that valued the platform at $33 billion net of debt - about $11 billion below the $44 billion Elon Musk paid for Twitter in 2022 (CNBC, 2025). The advertising business that drives X is recovering but still small: Bloomberg pegged 2025 revenue near $2.9 billion, up roughly 10% year over year yet about half of Twitter’s $4.5 billion in 2022. Reach is contested because X no longer publishes audited figures - Musk claims 600 million monthly users while independent trackers estimate closer to 561 million, and DataReportal measured a 586 million global ad audience in January 2025. In the United States, 16% of adults use X and just 12% get news there (Pew Research Center, 2025). This analysis consolidates data from DataReportal, Pew Research Center, eMarketer, Bloomberg, Fortune, and 8 other primary sources to map where X stands in mid-2026.
TL;DR
- xAI acquired X in March 2025 at a $33B net-of-debt valuation, below the $44B 2022 purchase price (CNBC, 2025).
- Musk claims 600M monthly active users; independent analysts estimate about 561M (Bloomberg Law, 2024; Business of Apps, 2025).
- X’s global advertising audience was 586M in January 2025, down 5.3% year over year (DataReportal, Digital 2025).
- Q3 2025 revenue reached $752M, up more than 17% year over year (Bloomberg, 2025).
- eMarketer projected 2025 worldwide ad revenue up 16.5% to $2.26B, the first growth in four years (eMarketer, 2025).
- X reported 102M monthly active recipients in the EU in its latest DSA filing (X DSA Transparency Report, 2025).
- 16% of U.S. adults use X and 12% regularly get news there (Pew Research Center, 2025).
- X reached about 2M paid Premium subscribers, a roughly $1B annualized run rate (Social Media Today, 2025).
- The United States is the largest market at 104M users, followed by Japan at 70.9M (DataReportal, Digital 2025).
- x.com drew 3.91B web visits in May 2026 with a 17-minute average session (Similarweb, 2026).
- UK revenue fell 58% in 2024 to $39.8M, per Companies House filings (Fortune, 2026).
1. How Many People Use X: The Measurement Gap
The honest answer is that nobody outside X knows precisely, and that is the story. After Musk took the company private in 2022, X stopped publishing audited user and revenue data, so every headline number is either a company claim or a third-party model. Musk says X has 600 million monthly active users; independent app-analytics firms put the figure closer to 561 million, a gap of roughly 40 million (Bloomberg Law, 2024; Business of Apps, 2025). DataReportal’s advertising-reach measurement, the most methodologically transparent public proxy, landed at 586 million in January 2025 and was trending down.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Musk’s stated monthly active users | 600M (about half daily) | Elon Musk via Bloomberg Law, 2024 |
| Independent MAU estimate (mid-2025) | ~561M (down from 586M in 2024) | Business of Apps, 2025 |
| Global advertising audience (Jan 2025) | 586M | DataReportal, Digital 2025 |
| Year-over-year ad-reach change | -33.0M (-5.3%) | DataReportal, Digital 2025 |
| EU monthly active recipients | 102M (up 7M in the period) | X DSA Transparency Report, 2025 |
| App downloads, recent month (iOS + Android) | ~13M (5M Apple, 8M Google) | Sensor Tower, 2026 |
| Expert MAU range cited across trackers | 540M-650M | Yahoo Finance / analyst consensus, 2025 |
Source: DataReportal, Essential X (Twitter) Stats and Trends; Social Media Today, X Reports Higher Usage in EU in Latest DSA Report.
Outlier note: the EU number is the rare figure X is legally obliged to disclose. Its DSA transparency report showed 102 million monthly active recipients in Europe, the first increase after a steady decline since November 2023. For how X’s reach compares against the wider platform field, see our social media statistics roundup.
2. X in the United States: Usage and the News Audience
X punches above its size in influence and below it in reach. Only 16% of U.S. adults said they used X in 2025 and 10% used it daily, ranking it among the lower-adoption major platforms Pew tracks (Pew Research Center, Americans’ Social Media Use 2025, surveyed February-June 2025). As a news source it is smaller still: 12% of Americans regularly get news on X, well behind Facebook (38%) and YouTube (35%). The composition of that audience has flipped politically - Republicans now outnumber Democrats among X users after the reverse was true two years earlier.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| U.S. adults who use X (2025) | 16% | Pew Research Center, 2025 |
| U.S. adults who use X daily | 10% | Pew Research Center, 2025 |
| U.S. adults who regularly get news on X | 12% | Pew Research Center, 2025 |
| Get news on Facebook (for comparison) | 38% | Pew Research Center, 2025 |
| Get news on YouTube (for comparison) | 35% | Pew Research Center, 2025 |
| Republicans who use X | 24% | Pew Research Center, 2025 |
| Democrats who use X | 19% | Pew Research Center, 2025 |
| U.S. adults who use TikTok (for comparison) | 37% | Pew Research Center, 2025 |
Source: Pew Research Center, Americans’ Social Media Use 2025; Pew Research Center, Social Media and News Fact Sheet.
Context note: two years earlier, Democrats were more likely than Republicans to use X (26% versus 20%), so the current 24%-to-19% Republican lead marks a real shift in the platform’s center of gravity (Pew Research Center, 2025). By comparison, 26% of U.S. adults use Reddit - the divergent trajectories are covered in our Reddit statistics roundup.
3. Revenue and the Advertising Recovery
2025 was the year X stopped bleeding on the top line. Bloomberg reported Q3 2025 revenue of $752 million, up more than 17% year over year, with the first nine months of 2025 exceeding $2 billion and full-year revenue projected near $2.9 billion (Bloomberg, 2025). eMarketer separately projected worldwide ad revenue rising 16.5% to $2.26 billion, the first annual ad-revenue growth since Musk’s takeover. The recovery is real but modest: even after the rebound, X earns roughly half what it did at its 2021 peak.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Q3 2025 total revenue | $752M (+17% YoY) | Bloomberg, 2025 |
| First nine months 2025 revenue | Over $2B | Bloomberg, 2025 |
| Full-year 2025 revenue (projected) | ~$2.9B (+10% YoY) | Bloomberg, 2025 |
| 2025 worldwide ad revenue (projected) | $2.26B (+16.5% YoY) | eMarketer, 2025 |
| 2025 U.S. ad revenue (projected) | $1.31B (+17.5% YoY) | eMarketer via CNBC, 2025 |
| 2021 peak ad revenue | $4.51B | eMarketer / CNBC, 2025 |
| 2023 ad-revenue decline | -51.7% | eMarketer, 2025 |
Source: eMarketer, X Ad Revenue Forecast 2025; CNBC, X to report first annual ad revenue growth since Musk’s takeover.
Context note: advertising still accounts for the majority of revenue, but 2025’s growth is measured against a deeply depressed base - eMarketer’s own chart is titled to note that X’s ad business remains roughly half its 2021 size (eMarketer, 2025).
4. Valuation, Ownership, and the Financials That Leak
X is now a subsidiary of an AI company, and the numbers that surface come mostly from merger disclosures and foreign regulatory filings. The March 2025 xAI-X all-stock merger valued X at $33 billion net of debt - a $45 billion enterprise value less $12 billion of debt - and valued xAI at $80 billion (CNBC, 2025). The $33 billion mark is notable against the $44 billion Musk paid in 2022. The clearest audited window into X’s health is the UK filing, where local revenue collapsed 58% in 2024.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| X valuation in xAI merger (Mar 2025) | $33B (net of debt) | CNBC, 2025 |
| X enterprise value / debt | $45B less $12B debt | CNBC, 2025 |
| xAI valuation at merger | $80B | CNBC, 2025 |
| 2022 Twitter acquisition price | $44B | CNBC, 2025 |
| X UK revenue, 2024 | $39.8M (-58% YoY) | Fortune / Companies House, 2026 |
| X UK revenue, 2022 | $282.9M | Fortune / Companies House, 2026 |
| Global ad revenue, 2022 (context) | $4.5B | Fortune / Companies House, 2026 |
| Global ad revenue, 2023 (context) | $2.2B (-46% YoY) | Fortune / Companies House, 2026 |
Source: Fortune, New filings expose Elon Musk’s financials for X in the UK; The Washington Post, xAI buys X at $33 billion valuation.
Context note: X attributed the UK decline to reduced spending from large brand advertisers over brand-safety and content-moderation concerns, the same pressure that dragged global ad revenue from $4.5 billion in 2022 to about $2 billion in 2024 (Fortune, 2026). Since the merger, X’s feed and the xAI Grok assistant have become increasingly integrated inside the app.
5. Who Uses X: Demographics and Geography
X’s audience is concentrated, male-skewing, and young-adult heavy. The United States alone accounts for 104 million users - more than Japan (70.9 million), Indonesia, and India combined at the top of the ranking (DataReportal, Digital 2025). Globally, X’s advertising audience is 63.7% male, one of the most gender-skewed profiles among large platforms, and 25-to-34-year-olds are the single largest cohort at 37.5%. Reach outside the top markets thins quickly.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| United States users (largest market) | 104M | DataReportal, Digital 2025 |
| Japan users | 70.9M | DataReportal, Digital 2025 |
| Indonesia users | 25.2M | DataReportal, Digital 2025 |
| India users | 24.1M | DataReportal, Digital 2025 |
| Male share of ad audience | 63.7% | DataReportal, Digital 2025 |
| Largest age group, 25-34 | 37.5% | DataReportal, Digital 2025 |
| Second age group, 18-24 | 32.1% | DataReportal, Digital 2025 |
Source: DataReportal, Essential X (Twitter) Stats and Trends.
Divergence note: DataReportal’s country figures are advertising-audience estimates, not registered-user counts, and other panels report different totals - one widely shared 2025 tracker listed the U.S. at 105.1 million and Japan at 74.5 million. Treat all country splits as third-party models, since X publishes none.
6. Subscriptions, Creators, and Engagement
The paid business Musk staked X’s future on is growing but has badly missed its own targets. X reached about 2 million paid Premium subscribers by early 2025, a roughly $1 billion annualized run rate - versus the 69 million subscribers Musk once projected for end-2025 (Social Media Today, 2025). Engagement, by contrast, is X’s genuine strength: Similarweb clocked x.com at 3.91 billion web visits in May 2026 with a 17-minute average session, unusually sticky for a text-first platform.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Paid Premium subscribers (early 2025) | ~2M | Social Media Today, 2025 |
| Premium annualized run rate | ~$1B | Social Media Today, 2025 |
| Creator revenue-sharing paid (cumulative) | ~$20M since launch | Influencer Marketing Hub, 2025 |
| x.com web visits (May 2026) | 3.91B | Similarweb, 2026 |
| Average session duration (May 2026) | 17 min 4 sec | Similarweb, 2026 |
| Direct traffic share | 78.9% | Similarweb, 2026 |
| Estimated bot share of accounts | 9%-15% (contested) | Independent research, 2025 |
| X mobile daily active users (June 2025) | 132M (-15.2% YoY) | Similarweb, 2025 |
Source: Similarweb, x.com Traffic Analytics; Social Media Today, Data Shows That X Premium Take-up Is Growing.
Context note: subscriptions now contribute an estimated 30% of X revenue rather than the 50%-plus Musk targeted, and the creator payout pool is small because only verified-user engagement counts (Social Media Today, 2025). Video and short clips are increasingly central to X’s engagement pitch, a trend we cover in our short-form video statistics roundup; the platform’s creator monetization sits inside the wider creator economy. Bot-share estimates remain contested: independent researchers center on 9%-15% of total accounts, rising sharply in political and high-attention conversations, while X maintains fewer than 5% are spam.
Summary: X (Formerly Twitter) by the Numbers
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| X valuation in xAI merger (Mar 2025) | $33B (net of debt) | CNBC, 2025 |
| xAI valuation at merger | $80B | CNBC, 2025 |
| 2022 Twitter acquisition price | $44B | CNBC, 2025 |
| Musk’s stated monthly active users | 600M | Bloomberg Law, 2024 |
| Independent MAU estimate (mid-2025) | ~561M | Business of Apps, 2025 |
| Global advertising audience (Jan 2025) | 586M (-5.3% YoY) | DataReportal, Digital 2025 |
| EU monthly active recipients | 102M | X DSA Transparency Report, 2025 |
| Q3 2025 revenue | $752M (+17% YoY) | Bloomberg, 2025 |
| Full-year 2025 revenue (projected) | ~$2.9B | Bloomberg, 2025 |
| 2025 worldwide ad revenue (projected) | $2.26B (+16.5%) | eMarketer, 2025 |
| 2021 peak ad revenue | $4.51B | eMarketer / CNBC, 2025 |
| X UK revenue, 2024 | $39.8M (-58% YoY) | Fortune, 2026 |
| U.S. adults who use X (2025) | 16% | Pew Research Center, 2025 |
| U.S. adults who get news on X | 12% | Pew Research Center, 2025 |
| X mobile daily active users (June 2025) | 132M (-15.2% YoY) | Similarweb, 2025 |
| Estimated bot share of accounts | 9%-15% (contested) | Independent research, 2025 |
| Paid Premium subscribers | Social Media Today, 2025 | |
| x.com web visits (May 2026) | 3.91B | Similarweb, 2026 |
| Average session duration | 17 min 4 sec | Similarweb, 2026 |
Methodology and Sources
Data was gathered by prioritizing X’s own regulatory disclosures (EU DSA reporting, UK Companies House filings) and merger documents for financial and reach metrics, then cross-referencing user, advertising, demographic, and traffic figures against independent primary trackers with disclosed methodology; company claims are labeled as such because X no longer publishes audited data.
- DataReportal (Kepios) - Digital 2025 and Essential X (Twitter) Stats, January 2025: datareportal.com
- Pew Research Center - Americans’ Social Media Use 2025 (November 2025) and Social Media and News Fact Sheet: pewresearch.org
- eMarketer - X Ad Revenue Forecast 2025: emarketer.com
- CNBC - xAI acquires X and X ad-revenue turnaround (March 2025): cnbc.com
- The Washington Post - xAI buys X at $33 billion valuation (March 2025): washingtonpost.com
- Bloomberg - X 2025 revenue reporting (via Social Media Today and MediaPost, December 2025): socialmediatoday.com
- Fortune - X UK Companies House financial filings (January 2026): fortune.com
- X DSA Transparency Report (2025), reported by Social Media Today: socialmediatoday.com
- Similarweb - x.com traffic analytics (May-June 2026): similarweb.com
- Business of Apps and Backlinko - independent MAU and usage aggregation (2025-2026)
- Bloomberg Law and Social Media Today - Musk’s 600M MAU and X Premium claims (2024-2025)
- Influencer Marketing Hub - X creator revenue-sharing data (2025)
- Sensor Tower - X app download data (2025-2026)
Data watch: DataReportal publishes its Digital and Essential X snapshots at least annually, with its next global overview report due in early 2027; Pew Research Center releases its Americans’ Social Media Use series annually, with the next edition expected in late 2026; X files its EU DSA transparency report every six months; eMarketer refreshes its ad-revenue forecasts through the year; and Similarweb updates its traffic panel monthly. Because X is private, watch merger and foreign-filing disclosures for the only audited numbers.
Last updated: July 9, 2026. We review and update this page quarterly as new data is published.