In a surprising turn of events, the social media platform Bluesky has seen a meteoric rise in popularity, particularly among academics, journalists, and left-leaning politicians, as they seek refuge from the increasingly toxic atmosphere on Elon Musk's X (formerly Twitter). Recently, Bluesky surpassed Meta's Threads in user numbers, although Threads continues to dominate in terms of app usage and engagement.

Recent data from Similarweb indicates that Bluesky's app and website usage in the United States skyrocketed by over 500% following Donald Trump's election win as President. The platform now boasts around 3.5 million daily users, contributing to a total user base of approximately 21.5 million as of late November. Bluesky's CEO, Jay Graber, expressed excitement about the platform's growth, stating, "We're gaining around a million users a day, validating our approach to social media. Our model empowers users to control their experience, ultimately leading to a better time on the app."

Launched in 2019 by Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, Bluesky functions similarly to X, allowing users to share text, videos, and photos while engaging with one another. Since the beginning of this surge, Bluesky has implemented a unique "starter pack" feature that enables users to easily follow groups of curated accounts with just a click, which has certainly contributed to its growing appeal.

Nevertheless, Bluesky's rapid growth has not come without challenges. Users have reported repeated outages and technical glitches, raising flags about the platform's sustainability as a viable business model. Despite these setbacks, Bluesky has closed the gap significantly with Threads—formerly boasting five times more daily users than Bluesky. Currently, Threads maintains just 1.5 times the user base of its rival.

A potential factor behind this shift may lie in CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to deprioritize political content across Meta’s platforms, including Facebook and Instagram. In stark contrast, Musk's approach has included a reduction in content moderation on X, raising concerns about the proliferation of disinformation and harassment on the platform.

Musk’s controversial ties to Trump, along with his promotion of fringe theories, have led to a notable exodus of users. A significant incident occurred when X faced a temporary suspension in Brazil in September, coinciding with Bluesky gaining 3 million new users that week alone. A few days after Musk announced his controversial decision to allow users to see posts by those who blocked them, Bluesky gained an additional 1.2 million users.

As the battle for user loyalty continues, will Bluesky manage to sustain its momentum, or will it face challenges as users demand more functionality and reliability? This emerging rivalry highlights the ever-evolving landscape of social media, where user preferences can shift dramatically in response to leadership decisions and the overall environment of online discourse.