As of proper now, in accordance with stories from Twitter, the platform is seeing record-high utilization, each when it comes to customers and time spent within the app.

As you possibly can see on this chart, which Elon Musk introduced on the Morgan Stanley Tech, Media and Telecommunications Convention in March, as of This fall 22 – the interval ending in December final 12 months – Twitter was as much as 253 million every day lively customers.

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

Which isn’t radically totally different from Twitter’s efficiency updates in instances previous – Twitter has been steadily rising its every day lively consumer depend over time, and was at 237.8 million every day customers as of July final 12 months, earlier than Musk took over on the app. Numerous stories have additionally indicated that the common Twitter consumer spends about half-hour per day within the app – so it’s not a loopy leap to see Twitter’s utilization stats enhance, particularly given the hype and a spotlight given to Musk’s actions on the app.

However the whole consumer numbers are fascinating whenever you additionally think about Musk’s personal claims across the variety of faux profiles within the app, which his authorized workforce submitted as a part of Musk’s effort to get out of his settlement to purchase the app final 12 months.

As you’ll recall, in July final 12 months, Elon tried to renege on his $44 billion supply for the app, as a result of primarily based on his workforce’s evaluation, Twitter wasn’t truly price that a lot as a result of excessive quantity of bot profiles that have been included in its lively consumer figures.

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

Musk finally settled on it being a extra modest 20%, whereas noting that it was seemingly a lot greater.

A part of Elon’s acknowledged 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 may be a big quantity, which may certainly sway topical discussions.

Musk’s plan was to take Twitter non-public, which would scale back market scrutiny on the app. That may then allow it to deal with its bot issues with out worrying in regards to the influence on its consumer depend – however since then, and following varied claims that Musk has killed bots within the app, which undoubtedly account for not less than 5% of its every day actives (equal to 12.65 million accounts), Twitter’s truly added some 15 million extra customers?

In uncooked numbers, that may imply that if bots accounted for 20% of Twitter’s mDAU depend as Elon claimed (50.6m), Twitter’s truly added 65 million new every day actives since July final 12 months, changing the bots with actual individuals as Twitter has theoretically eradicated them.

Which is feasible, however not very seemingly whenever you additionally take a look at Twitter’s progress chart over time.

As you possibly can see on this chart, Twitter’s consumer progress has been fairly gradual and regular, with a bounce in Q2 2022 to 237.8 million mDAU, its last replace earlier than Elon took over. If Twitter truly added 65 million extra customers between Q2 and This fall final 12 months, that may imply that it replicated nearly 3 years price of progress, inside a span of 6 months, its quickest progress charge by a great distance.

Once more, that could possibly be throughout the realm of risk, but it surely looks as if a really fast acceleration – which implies that Twitter is both actually, actually in style below Elon Musk, it hasn’t eliminated bot profiles on the charge that it claims, or it’s not truly seeing 253 million lively customers.

We don’t know for positive, as a result of Twitter now not has to supply transparency over its calculations, or report its efficiency updates, because it’s not a publicly listed entity. Nevertheless it does appear unusual that Twitter claims to be eliminating bots, which might carry down its lively consumer depend, primarily based on all previous metrics, whereas its lively consumer figures are literally leaping to new highs.

One thing doesn’t add up, and it does appear to be Elon has determined that Twitter’s bot issues usually are not as large 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 have been bots, which might imply that he would want to get rid of nearly 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 thousands and thousands of bots are nonetheless lively? That extra bots have flocked to the app? Or does it present that many, many extra individuals than ever at the moment are logging into Twitter day-after-day?

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

And the query I might have for Elon is: ‘What share of Twitter’s mDAU depend proper now is definitely bots?’