As of proper now, in response to reviews from Twitter, the platform is seeing record-high utilization, each by way of customers and time spent within the app.

As you’ll be able to see on this chart, which Elon Musk introduced on the Morgan Stanley Tech, Media and Telecommunications Convention in March, as of This autumn 22 – the interval ending in December final yr – Twitter was as much as 253 million day by day energetic customers.

Musk has additionally claimed that Twitter’s now exceeding 8 billion whole person minutes per day, which implies that, on common, Twitter customers are spending 31.6 minutes per day within the app.

Which isn’t radically completely different from Twitter’s efficiency updates in occasions previous – Twitter has been steadily rising its day by day energetic person rely over time, and was at 237.8 million day by day customers as of July final yr, earlier than Musk took over on the app. Varied reviews have additionally indicated that the typical Twitter person spends about half-hour per day within the app – so it’s not a loopy leap to see Twitter’s utilization stats improve, particularly given the hype and a focus given to Musk’s actions on the app.

However the whole person numbers are fascinating if you additionally contemplate Musk’s personal claims across the variety of faux profiles within the app, which his authorized group submitted as a part of Musk’s effort to get out of his settlement to purchase the app final yr.

As you’ll recall, in July final yr, Elon tried to renege on his $44 billion supply for the app, as a result of primarily based on his group’s evaluation, Twitter wasn’t truly value that a lot because of the excessive quantity of bot profiles that had been included in its energetic person figures.

Twitter had lengthy held that the variety of faux profiles within the app didn’t exceed 5% of its whole mDAU rely, primarily based by itself sampling, however Musk claimed that it was truly far more, with round 33% of its energetic profiles being fakes, primarily based on his personal analysis and evaluation.

Musk ultimately settled on it being a extra modest 20%, whereas noting that it was probably a lot larger.

A part of Elon’s said motivation for taking up Twitter was to rid the platform of bots, which he believed had skewed dialog within the app, and on the charges that he was referring to, that might be a big quantity, which may certainly sway topical discussions.

Musk’s plan was to take Twitter personal, which would cut back market scrutiny on the app. That will then allow it to deal with its bot issues with out worrying in regards to the influence on its person rely – however since then, and following varied claims that Musk has killed bots within the app, which positively account for a minimum of 5% of its day by day actives (equal to 12.65 million accounts), Twitter’s truly added some 15 million extra customers?

In uncooked numbers, that might imply that if bots accounted for 20% of Twitter’s mDAU rely as Elon claimed (50.6m), Twitter’s truly added 65 million new day by day actives since July final yr, changing the bots with actual individuals as Twitter has theoretically eradicated them.

Which is feasible, however not very probably if you additionally take a look at Twitter’s development chart over time.

As you’ll be able to see on this chart, Twitter’s person development has been fairly gradual and regular, with a soar in Q2 2022 to 237.8 million mDAU, its closing replace earlier than Elon took over. If Twitter truly added 65 million extra customers between Q2 and This autumn final yr, that might imply that it replicated virtually 3 years value of development, inside a span of 6 months, its quickest development charge by a good distance.

Once more, that may very well be throughout the realm of risk, nevertheless it looks as if a really fast acceleration – which implies that Twitter is both actually, actually well-liked beneath Elon Musk, it hasn’t eliminated bot profiles on the charge that it claims, or it’s not truly seeing 253 million energetic customers.

We don’t know for positive, as a result of Twitter not has to offer transparency over its calculations, or report its efficiency updates, because it’s not a publicly listed entity. But it surely does appear unusual that Twitter claims to be eliminating bots, which might convey down its energetic person rely, primarily based on all previous metrics, whereas its energetic person figures are literally leaping to new highs.

One thing doesn’t add up, and it does look like Elon has determined that Twitter’s bot issues will not be as massive as they appeared, now that he’s the one in cost on the app. Once more, at one stage, he was claiming that 33% of Twitter accounts had been bots, which might imply that he would wish to get rid of virtually 84 million profiles to free the app of bot exercise.

However its mDAU quantity hasn’t gone down, in any respect, it’s gone up.

Does that imply that hundreds of thousands of bots are nonetheless energetic? That extra bots have flocked to the app? Or does it present that many, many extra individuals than ever are actually logging into Twitter daily?

Someplace, there’s a mismatch within the story that Twitter’s presenting.

And the query I’d have for Elon is: ‘What proportion of Twitter’s mDAU rely proper now is definitely bots?’