# X users jump to Bluesky - but what is it and who owns it?

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8dm0ljg4y6o

## Summary

Bluesky has gained many new users since Donald Trump's US election win in November, as some people leave X, formerly Twitter, over its owner Elon Musk's backing of Trump and his role in the incoming administration. The Guardian has stopped posting on X, calling it "a toxic media platform," and Bluesky's app was the top free app in the UK Apple App Store on Thursday. Bluesky started with funding from investors and venture capital firms, raising tens of millions of dollars, and it says it wants to avoid advertising and instead explore paid services such as custom domains in usernames.

## Article

It is no coincidence that the number of new Bluesky users spiked following Donald Trump's success in the US elections in November.

X's owner, Mr Musk, was a big backer of Trump during his campaign, and will be heavily involved in his administration.

Inevitably, this has led to a political division, with some people leaving X in protest.

But others have cited different reasons, such as the Guardian newspaper which has chosen to stop posting there as it called X "a toxic media platform".

Meanwhile, Bluesky's app continues to pick up significant downloads worldwide and on Thursday was the top free app in the Apple App Store in the UK.

Several celebrities, from pop singer Lizzo to Taskmaster's Greg Davies, have announced they are joining the platform and limiting their use of - or in some cases leaving altogether - X.

Other names you might recognise include Ben Stiller, Jamie Lee Curtis and Patton Oswalt.

But this growth, while significant, will have to continue for a long time before Bluesky is able to mount a true challenge to its microblogging rival.

X does not share its total user numbers but it is understood to be measured in the hundreds of millions, with Elon Musk previously saying the platform had 250 million users each day, external.

It is the million dollar question, quite literally.

Bluesky started off with funding from investors and venture capital firms and has raised tens of millions of dollars through these means.

But with so many new users, it is going to have to find a way to pay the bills.

Back in Twitter's heyday, the site made the vast majority of its money through advertising.

Bluesky has said it wants to avoid this. Instead, it said it will continue to look into paid services, such as having people pay for custom domains in their username.

That sounds complicated but it basically comes down to a person's username being even more personalised.

For example, it may mean my username - @twgerken.bsky.social - could in the future be more official-sounding, such as @twgerken.bbc.co.uk.

Proponents of this idea say it doubles-up as a form of verification as the organisation which owns the website would have to clear its use.

If Bluesky's owners continue to avoid advertising, they may inevitably have to look to other broader options, such as subscription features, as a way of keeping the lights on.

But if it is not making very much money, that would not be unusual for tech startups.

In fact, Twitter, before it was purchased by Mr Musk in 2022, only made a profit twice in its eight years of being publicly traded.

And we all know how that ended - a massive payday for investors when the world's richest man paid $44bn (£34.7bn) for the privilege of owning it.

For now, the future of Bluesky remains unknown, but if its growth continues, anything is possible.