Elon Musk is the most popular user on X, which used to be called Twitter and was purchased by Musk in October of the previous year. His account, @ElonMusk, boasts a staggering 153 million followers, essentially making his profile a reflection of the entire platform. But who exactly are these followers of Musk in relation to the platform? How engaged are they? How frequently do they post their own content? Are they actively consuming content from other creators on X? And do they subscribe to Musk’s subscription plan, X Premium, previously known as Twitter Blue? Additionally, there might be questions about the authenticity of Musk’s follower base.
Mashable recently examined fresh data provided by Travis Brown, an independent researcher, who systematically gathered basic information about every single one of Musk’s 153 million followers. Importantly, this data collection was done while adhering to X’s rules and limits to ensure accuracy and fairness.
The big question for many people is whether the followers of Elon Musk on Twitter are real or not. A better word to use here is “inactive,” which means these followers aren’t really using their accounts. Many of Musk’s followers seem to show signs that they might not be active users.
At the time when the data was collected, Elon Musk had around 153 million accounts following him on Twitter. Surprisingly, about 42 percent of these followers (which is more than 65 million users) don’t have any followers of their own. And more than 72 per cent, which is nearly 112 million users, have less than 10 followers on their own accounts.
Follower Analysis of Elon Musk’s Twitter Account
Regarding posting on Twitter, over 62 million of Musk’s followers have never tweeted anything. This includes users who might have deleted their tweets and accounts that have never posted anything before. Also, more than 100 million of his followers have posted less than 10 tweets on their accounts.
Here’s another interesting fact: a lot of Musk’s followers made their accounts after he took over Twitter on October 27, 2022. Out of all his current followers, more than 25 per cent (which is about 38.9 million) joined on or after that date.
On average, each of the 153 million accounts following Musk has about 187 followers. But the person who analyzed the data says that how the followers are distributed makes the average not very meaningful. If we look at the middle number, called the median, it’s just one follower for each of the 153 million accounts following Musk.
The cumulative data points encompass indications of fabricated accounts, describe inactive users, or even refer to “lurkers” – individuals who solely consume content. Most likely, a combination of these three categories is at play. Yet, several additional statistics lean more towards the first two user types.
Analyzing Attributes of Inauthenticity and Engagement Patterns among Elon Musk’s X Followers
Over time, numerous legitimate users of X have identified specific attributes that strongly suggest an account’s inauthenticity or its automated nature. For instance, if an account employs the default profile picture or the auto-generated username, typically comprising a sequence of numbers, the probability of encountering a genuine, engaged user is notably low.
Approximately 25 per cent of all followers linked to Musk, exceeding 38 million in number, employ the default profile image offered by X for newly established accounts. Moreover, slightly under 50 million, or over 40 per cent of Musk’s followers, have usernames on X that incorporate four or more numerical digits.
Moreover, beyond 43.8 million Musk followers exhibit less than ten users in their entire following list on X. Roughly 13.5 million users solely follow a solitary account, namely @ElonMusk, at the point when the data was amassed.
One noteworthy data point revolves around the subscription rate of X Premium, Musk’s subscription service priced at $8 per month on Twitter (formerly known as Twitter Blue). Musk has consistently promoted this service through his account, emphasizing premium features like verification badges and monetization eligibility. Subscribing to X Premium has often been interpreted as a personal show of support for Musk himself by the platform’s users.
Evaluating the Influence and X Premium Subscription Rate of Elon Musk
In light of the recent dataset regarding @ElonMusk’s followers, it appears that only about 453,000 of his followers, accounting for just 0.3 percent, have subscribed to X Premium. A separate report from Mashable earlier this week stated that there were approximately 830,000 X Premium subscribers in total, based on data compiled by Brown.
Brown has taken an approach that adheres to the limitations set by Twitter’s platform, including its API, to gather data on X Premium. He has made sure to stay within the platform’s rate limits while collecting this data. However, these limits did cause some delays in the process. Due to these rate limits, Brown’s data does not encompass the most recent group of over 200,000 accounts that started following Musk. Additionally, more than 39,000 collected accounts have since deactivated themselves. At the time of publication, just under 6,000 Musk followers had been suspended by Twitter.
Musk recently made a claim that X now boasts over 540 million “monthly users.” If this figure is accurate, it implies that more than 25 percent of the platform’s accounts follow Musk. If these numbers are inflated, it could mean an even higher percentage of the entire platform’s user base is devoted to following Musk. Given that a significant portion of Musk’s 153 million followers might not actively use the platform or could potentially be fake accounts, it raises questions about the overall activity level of X’s user base.
