How Bluesky, Twitter’s onetime side project, is challenging X [Video]

Billionaire Mark Cuban, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and author Stephen King are all now on Bluesky. The social media platform is the brainchild of Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, who conceived Bluesky as a side project inside Twitter in 2019. Bluesky, which is no longer affiliated with Dorsey, is now its own company, and following the U.S. election, the platform saw an influx of new users, most of whom were looking to flee X. Bluesky now has over 28 million users, according to the company.

“The growth numbers for Bluesky are wild, and I think it’s really because there’s this vacuum being left by old Twitter,” says Meghana Dhar, a strategic advisor and former head of partnerships at Instagram and SnapInc. “When Elon Musk took over Twitter and it kind of became X, things changed a lot, right? Content moderation changed. He changed the pricing options. So as he kind of navigated that transition, …