Elon Musk's leadership of Twitter so far has proved chaotic and unnerving for workers and advertisers. Users do not seem to mind.
In the days since Musk officially took over the platform, average daily downloads of Twitter and daily average usage have increased considerably, according to Apptopia data provided to Insider. Already for November, daily downloads are up 28% compared to October. Compared to September, downloads are up 46%, the data showed.
On Nov. 3, Twitter saw 636,770 daily downloads, the highest since May, and almost twice as many downloads of the app in June. That night, Musk began to unceremoniously lay off thousands of Twitter employees. A few days later on Nov 6, Twitter saw another 555,070 downloads, according to Apptopia. As for daily active users, Nov. 6 also turned out to be an all-time high for Twitter, with 245.4 million people using the app that day, according to Apptopia. The prior high was June 8, when users hit 243.3 million.
Musk wrote on Twitter over the weekend that "Twitter user numbers have increased significantly around the world since the deal was announced." In a separate Tweet, he said that part of the motivation behind changes to Twitter Blue, Twitter's subscription product that is expected to roll out an option to purchase being "verified," is to "incentivize people to do a lot more interactions on Twitter!"
While it remains to be seen how active Twitter's new users will be on the platform, Adam Blacker, Apptopia's director of content, surmised the new growth spurt stems from people curious to see what's going on with the platform under Musk.
"It's like a car accident on the highway," Blacker said. "People like to stop and watch."
The last spike in Twitter usage like this was in late April, around the time that Musk and Twitter revealed their $44 billion merger agreement, according to the data. Musk then attempted to back out of his acquisition, leading to a tumultuous court battle the billionaire eventually gave up on.
Blacker added that a majority of Twitter users, including those newly downloading, do not post to the platform. Instead, they simply "read and like tweets."
In a sample search from Apptopia of recent app store reviews of the app on Nov. 3, Musk was mentioned repeatedly by users. "Thankful Elon took control," one review said. "Better since Elon took over," another read. Despite the app having made no changes to functionality at that point, other reviewers made similar comments about the app.
As for whether any users have left the app if they have it hasn't been enough to show up in the data. Active user numbers have not dropped since a slight dip in June, the Apptopia data showed, although the company does not track "uninstalls" of apps.
