Elon Musk’s latest attempt to save X ignores the real problem

Elon Musk is hoping his ethically dubious generative AI tool, Grok, will help stem the continuing exodus from his social media site X. Musk has launched a free version of the AI chatbot Grok to X users without Premium accounts.

Digital market intelligence company Similarweb estimates that the number of daily active users on X has dropped from 32.3 million to 29.6 million, an 8.4% decrease, since early October in the U.S. The exodus coincides with Musk’s takeover of the @America handle on Oct. 6, in order to promote Donald Trump’s presidential run. 

The social media company has become a cesspool of right-wing hate and misinformation since Musk acquired it in October 2022 for $44 billion. It has shed around 80% of its value since Musk took over, and has continued to bleed users ever since. Numerous news organizations and journalists fled the site in November, in anticipation of dubious changes to X’s terms of service.