X continues to lose EU users

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X continues to lose ground in the EU, with the platform reporting fewer users again in its latest DSA disclosure report.

Under the EU Digital Services Act, all large online platforms are required to share biannual reports on user counts, as well as content moderation efforts, moderation staffing and government information requests.

X’s latest report showed that the platform has continued to see declines in active users, though the drops in its latest update are slight.

As shown in this chart, X’s EU user count has been in decline since November 2023, which was the first year after Elon Musk acquired the platform in late 2022.

Musk’s changes at the app seemed to bring some additional interest to the platform, and the platform’s EU active user count rose again, according to its report released in October 2025, which covered the first half of the year. But in the second half of 2025, X usage in the EU dipped about 15%, and it has remained at that level into 2026.

That’s despite repeated claims from Musk and X staff that the platform is seeing record-high usage and interest.

While these insights are only for the EU, the declines here also reinforce external data, which indicates that X’s overall user base is shrinking.  

According to recent figures shared by SimilarWeb and reported by TechCrunch, X has seen a significant decline in monthly active users this year.

As per SimilarWeb estimates, which track app store activity, X had around 302 million mobile active users in June 2026. Meanwhile, X’s daily active user count was 123.7 million at that time. It’s worth noting that SimilarWeb estimates may not be 100% accurate, and this figure doesn’t include web usage. But these figures are generally indicative of larger trends, and they vary significantly from what X itself has shared.

In May, as part of the SpaceX prospective, X reported that it had 550 million monthly active users. Its website users would account for some of this, but traditionally, around 85% of X’s users have accessed the app on mobile, so it’s unlikely that this would account for a 250 million user reporting discrepancy.

Again, SimilarWeb’s figures are likely lower than the actual totals, given limitations in its tracking capacity. But even so, the data supports the numbers in X’s DSA reporting, which show that the app is indeed losing its audience over time.

X’s user count, however, is only one element. On the revenue front, the platform also appears to be flailing.

As reported by TechDirt, contained within SpaceX’s Q2 performance update published August 4 were the app’s latest revenue figures.

In the second quarter of 2026, X brought in $367 million in ad revenue, with the platform cumulatively generating $710 million in ad intake for the first half of the year.

That represents a decline of $160 million year over year compared to the first half of 2025, or an 18.4% dip.

That’s also significantly lower than X generated in the first half of 2022, which was the last year before Elon Musk took over.

In the first quarter of 2022, Twitter brought in $1.2 billion total revenue and $1.11 billion in ad revenue, while for the first half of 2022, Twitter posted about $2.2 billion in ad revenue.

In other words, the company’s ad revenue between the first half of 2022 and the first half of 2026 dropped about 70%.

The figures give tangible scope to the impact that Musk’s changes have had on the business. At one stage, he claimed he would be generating $12 billion in ad revenue by 2028, according to reporting by the New York Times.

The NYT also reported that Musk expected X would reach 69 million paying subscribers by 2025, which would then rise to 159 million in 2028.

SpaceX hasn’t shared data on X’s subscriber counts, but in February, X’s now-former Head of Product Nikita Bier said the platform had reached $1 billion in annual revenue from subscriptions.

The average price of an X Premium subscription is $8 per month, which lies between $3 per month for its Basic tier and $40 a month for Premium+.

Assuming that $8 is the middle ground, at a $1 billion annual run rate, that would suggest that X currently has around 10.4 million paying users. Which, at 550 million monthly active users, would equate to only about 1.9% of X’s total audience.

So things aren’t going great at the app, or at least not as great as Musk had hoped. Now the question is how much that actually matters, given that X as an app is now just one component of the bigger SpaceX conglomerate.

X provides a critical data stream for xAI, which uses the millions of posts in the app to inform its models. That means X now has a different value internally, aside from its own ad and subscription intake. If xAI becomes a profitable business, that may mean the platform may not need to generate as much money to remain viable.

However, Musk doesn’t share a lot of specific insight into his grand plans, other than a moonbase, humanoid robots and orbital data centers.

Somehow, in Musk’s mind at least, all of the pieces will come together. That said, X will presumably need to maintain a significant enough audience to keep the data flowing in.