X's advertising revenue fell to $710 million in the first half of 2026, an 18.4 per cent drop from the same period a year earlier. The figure, disclosed in a SpaceX SEC filing, confirms what advertisers and regulators have suspected for months: the platform formerly known as Twitter is contracting on almost every meaningful metric.
The European dimension is particularly stark. Under the Digital Services Act, X must report its Average Monthly Active Recipients of the Service in the EU. The latest figure stands at 100.9 million, down from 102 million in early 2025. That 1.1 per cent decline looks modest, but the longer trajectory tells a different story. After a brief uptick in the first half of 2025, EU usage fell roughly 15 per cent in the second half and has remained at that depressed level through 2026. The total decline since late 2023 is substantial.
Why the EU numbers matter most
The DSA reporting requirements give regulators and the public the most reliable, independently verifiable data on X's European audience. Without them, the platform's own disclosures would be far less transparent. The consistent downward trend since Elon Musk completed his $44 billion acquisition in October 2022 aligns with what advertisers and civil-society groups have been reporting anecdotally: European users, and the brands that want to reach them, are losing interest.
The structural reasons are not hard to identify. Musk overhauled content moderation, replaced the verification system with paid blue ticks, and gutted the teams that previously handled trust and safety. The Grok deepfake scandal in early 2026, in which users exploited the AI chatbot to generate non-consensual sexualised images, including of minors, crystallised concerns about platform safety. Reuters testing between 14 and 28 January found that Grok could still produce non-consensual sexualised imagery even after initial restrictions were imposed.
A Pew Research Center survey found that 73 per cent of US users consider harassment on X a problem, with 32 per cent calling it a major one. That perception of toxicity, combined with the steady stream of content-moderation controversies, has corroded the confidence of both users and advertisers. Major brands including Disney, Apple and IBM paused advertising after their campaigns appeared alongside problematic content.
Global mobile usage keeps falling
Beyond Europe, the picture is also deteriorating. According to Similarweb data cited by TechCrunch, X had approximately 302 million monthly active mobile users in June 2026, a 3 per cent year-on-year decline. Daily mobile usage fell further: 123.7 million daily active users in July, down 7 per cent from the same month in 2025.
Measuring X's total user base is complicated. A SpaceX SEC filing from May 2026 reported roughly 550 million monthly active users for X and Grok combined as of 31 March. Because that figure bundles two services and different measurement methodologies capture different slices of activity, the true size of X's audience remains uncertain. What is clear is that mobile engagement, where advertising revenue is concentrated, is declining.
Web traffic tells a somewhat different story. X recorded 4.7 billion visits on the web in July 2026, far ahead of Threads' 471.6 million. But web users are less valuable to advertisers than mobile ones, and the gap between total visits and active users suggests that much of X's web presence comes from passive browsing rather than logged-in engagement.
Threads overtakes X on mobile
The most symbolic shift came in daily mobile usage. Meta's Threads recorded 147 million daily active mobile users in July, comfortably ahead of X's 123.7 million. Threads also reached 500 million monthly active users in June. While X retains a significant advantage in web traffic, the mobile metric is the one that matters most for advertising and for the network effects that sustain social platforms.
The competitive landscape has fragmented further. Bluesky continues to grow, and a platform called Twitter Now, which closely mimics the pre-Musk interface, briefly launched before going offline. Users who preferred the old Twitter now have multiple alternatives, and the migration appears to be accelerating on mobile.
An advertising business in freefall
The $710 million X earned from advertising in the first half of 2026 represents a 70 per cent decline from the $2.2 billion Twitter generated in the first half of 2022. The comparison is not entirely fair, given changes to the business model and broader advertising-market conditions, but the magnitude of the fall is striking regardless.
Musk once told the New York Times that he aimed to grow Twitter's annual advertising revenue to $12 billion by 2028. At the current run rate, X would generate roughly $1.4 billion in annual ad revenue, assuming the second half of 2026 does not deteriorate further. That target now looks unattainable.
The subscription pivot
The advertising shortfall has pushed X towards paid subscriptions. The Premium+ tier, which offers additional Grok features and a largely ad-free experience, is central to this strategy. In February, X's head of product Nikita Bier claimed the platform had reached an annualised subscription revenue rate of $1 billion. The number of paying subscribers behind that figure has not been disclosed, making it difficult to assess.
Even if the subscription claim is accurate, $1 billion in annualised revenue does not compensate for the $1.5 billion or more in annual advertising revenue that has evaporated since 2022. The subscription model also creates a tension: users who pay for an ad-free experience are, by definition, removing themselves from the advertising audience, which reduces the platform's attractiveness to the advertisers who remain.
Regulatory pressure from Brussels
The European Commission fined X €120 million in late 2025 for what it deemed a misleading verification system and insufficient transparency. The blue tick, once a mark of authenticity, became a paid product that the Commission argued confused users about which accounts were genuinely verified. The fine sits within a broader pattern of DSA enforcement against large platforms.
The Grok scandal added to regulatory scrutiny. EU authorities have made clear that generative AI tools deployed on platforms designated as Very Large Online Platforms must comply with content-moderation obligations. X's handling of the deepfake problem, and the weeks it took to restrict the tool, reinforced the Commission's case that the platform's safety systems were inadequate.
People mentioned
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Nikita Bier
Organisations
European Commission · SpaceX · Meta
