X (Twitter)

X is the platform the world still calls Twitter, renamed, reshaped and owned by Elon Musk, and rarely out of the headlines.

By Alexandre Le Hégarat · datastats · Updated June 13, 2026

Twitter · Public domain

X, the platform almost everyone still calls Twitter, is one of the most influential and most argued-about products on the internet. Founded as Twitter in 2006, it became the world’s de facto town square for news, politics, sport and real-time reaction. In October 2022, Elon Musk bought it for roughly 44 billion dollars, and in 2023 he renamed it X as part of a plan to turn it into an ‘everything app.’

Since then it has been in near-constant flux, staff cuts, paid verification, moderation changes, advertiser tension, and in 2025 a merger into Musk’s AI company xAI. People search for X to make sense of all this: why the name changed, who owns it now, whether it is safe, whether it is dying, and whether paying for it is worth it. The answers below stick to widely reported facts; the platform changes fast under Musk, so specific features and policies may have moved on since.

People also ask

Elon Musk rebranded Twitter as X in 2023, about a year after buying the company. The reasoning he gave was ambition: he has long wanted to build an 'everything app', a single platform for messaging, payments, video and more, modelled on apps like China's WeChat, and saw the Twitter name and bird logo as too narrow for that vision. 'X' ties into his longstanding fondness for the letter (X.com was his early company, later part of PayPal). The rename was controversial, since 'Twitter' and 'tweet' were among the most valuable brand names on the internet.

X is owned by Elon Musk, who bought Twitter in October 2022 for about 44 billion dollars and took it private. In 2025 Musk folded X into his AI company xAI, combining the social platform with his AI venture, so X now sits within that group rather than as a standalone public company. Musk remains the controlling figure behind it. It is no longer publicly traded, which is why there is no 'Twitter stock' to buy anymore.

In short: Elon Musk bought it, renamed it X, and overhauled it. After the 2022 takeover he cut a large share of the staff, changed content-moderation policies, made the blue verification check a paid feature, and rebranded the whole product as X in 2023. Supporters say it became leaner and more free-speech focused; critics point to more misinformation, advertiser pullbacks, and a rise in spam and impersonation. Either way, the product millions still call Twitter is now X, run very differently than before.

As an app, X is a mainstream platform and using it is broadly safe, but it carries the normal social-media risks plus a few sharpened ones. Since the takeover, critics have flagged more spam, scams, impersonation accounts, and misinformation, partly because paid verification changed how trust signals work. For your account, use a strong password and two-factor authentication; for what you read, treat viral claims with scepticism. As with any social platform, the bigger risks are scams and misinformation, not the app itself being unsafe.

It is heavily debated, and the honest answer is 'struggling in some ways, not dead.' Since 2022, X has faced advertiser caution, reported declines in some usage and revenue metrics, and growing competition from rivals like Threads, Bluesky and Mastodon. But it still has a massive global user base and remains central to news, politics and real-time conversation. 'Dying' overstates it; 'diminished and contested' is closer. Its future is tied to Musk's strategy and the xAI merger.

Historically Twitter ran almost entirely on advertising, and ads remain a core revenue source for X, though many big advertisers pulled back after the takeover and content changes. Musk has pushed to diversify: X Premium subscriptions (the paid tiers formerly called Twitter Blue), revenue-sharing with creators, and ambitions around payments and an 'everything app.' The merger with xAI also ties X to the AI business. So the model is shifting from pure advertising toward subscriptions and new services.

It depends what you want from the platform. X Premium (the subscription that replaced Twitter Blue) offers the blue checkmark, an edit button, longer posts, reduced ads, higher visibility for your replies, and access to features like the Grok AI assistant on higher tiers. For casual users, the free version covers the basics. The paid tiers mainly appeal to creators and power users who want reach, monetisation, and the extra tools. Whether it is 'worth it' comes down to how much you post and want to be seen.