Decrease in Advertising and User Engagement on X One Year After Elon Musk’s Acquisition of Twitter

1 year after acquiring Twitter. Advertising customers and professional users are further reducing their activities on X.

Almost a year ago, at the end of October 2022, US billionaire Elon Musk took over the Twitter platform. Companies in Germany that use Twitter or X are also unsettled by the changes that have taken place since then – some are planning to delete their presence there completely.

Since Musk took over, 43 percent of companies that use X have published fewer posts on the platform or have stopped posting their own posts entirely. 36 percent post to the same extent as before and 9 percent publish more posts or only started doing so after the Musk takeover.

This is the result of a representative survey of more than 600 companies in Germany with 20 or more employees, including 192 companies that have their own profile or account on X. The author of the analysis is the digital association By battle. According to this, 36 percent of companies that use X have placed fewer or no longer paid ads there since Elon Musk took over the platform. 21 percent are running ads to the same extent as before, 3 percent have increased their advertising efforts on Twitter or only started them after the takeover. 29 percent generally do not advertise on Twitter, i.e. neither before nor after the takeover.

Hate speech leads to uncertainty

“The increase in fake news, the increase in hate speech and the expression of sometimes extreme political attitudes have apparently led to massive uncertainty among many companies,” says Bitkom Managing Director Bernhard Rohleder.

Completely deleting your own company profile is also an option for some companies. A total of 21 percent of companies in Germany that use Time horizon. For 71 percent, profile deletion is currently not an issue and 8 percent do not provide any information. However, for some companies, X continues to be very important: for 43 percent of companies that use Twitter, the platform is an important communication channel.

A total of 74 percent of all companies – including those that are not represented on X – are calling for Twitter to be more closely monitored. 52 percent say the platform accelerates social division. More than half (54 percent) even think that German companies should withdraw from Twitter completely.