X, formerly Twitter, added more than 10 million users in December, the social media platform’s chief executive has said.
CEO Linda Yaccarino made the announcement in a post on X on Thursday amid an exodus of advertisers from the platform over disinformation and hate speech concerns.
Yaccarino did not elaborate on how many of those were paying users and how the number compared with an average month.
Major brands including Apple, Disney, IBM and Lions Gate Entertainment have left the platform in recent months amid claims the platform and billionaire owner Elon Musk have encouraged anti-Semitism.
Musk attracted a storm of criticism last month after endorsing a post accusing Jewish people of stoking hatred against whites and supporting immigration by “hordes of minorities”.
X has denied stoking anti-Semitism and last month filed a lawsuit against Media Matters, a liberal activist group, over a report that said ads for major brands such as Apple have run beside content that “touts Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party”.
Media Matters described the lawsuit as “frivolous” and aimed at bullying the platform’s critics into silence.
Musk, who bought Twitter for $44bn last year, last week accused companies fleeing the platform of attempting to blackmail him, telling advertisers: “Go f**k yourself.”
The New York Times reported last month that internal company files indicated that X could lose as much as $75m in advertising revenue by the end of the year due to falling advertising revenues.
More than 10 million people have signed up for X so far this December! pic.twitter.com/sW8cN2xM0Y
— Linda Yaccarino (@lindayaX) December 8, 2023
