Is Bluesky Down? Users Turn Away From Elon Musk’s X, Cause Website Outage

Following a wave of users leaving Elon Musk’s platform X after the 2024 election, millions joined Bluesky, a decentralized social media alternative, temporarily crashing its servers.
Championed by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Bluesky’s user base surged to 15 million, up from about 13 million at the end of October. Over 1.25 million new users joined in the last week, with many leaving X due to Musk’s support of President-elect Donald Trump.
The platform’s renewed post-election interest appeared to strain its servers, causing slowness and glitches on Thursday. Bluesky confirmed the issue, stating, “If Bluesky is a lil slow for you, hang tight! There are some networking issues on the U.S. east coast that are affecting Bluesky and other apps, but looks like they’re resolving now.”
This isn’t the first time Bluesky has seen an influx of users leaving X. After X was banned in Brazil in August, Bluesky gained 2.6 million users, with 85 percent coming from Brazil. Last month, 500,000 new users joined in a single day when X announced that blocked accounts would be able to view public posts.
Recent Google Trends data also shows a 200 percent increase over the past two weeks, with many searching for ways to deactivate their X accounts and seeking social media alternatives.
Bluesky, initially invitation-only, opened to the public in February after refining moderation tools and features from Twitter’s pre-Musk era. Despite its growth, Bluesky’s 15-million-user base remains a fraction of competitors like X and Meta’s Threads.
Last week, X reported it “dominated the global conversation on the U.S. election,” seeing a 15.5 percent increase in new-user signups on Election Day, with a record 942 million posts worldwide.
New Bluesky users—including journalists, left-leaning politicians, and celebrities—have shared their excitement about a space free from ads and hate speech, reminiscent of Twitter’s early days. On Wednesday, The Guardian announced it would stop posting on X due to “far-right conspiracy theories and racism” on the site, and journalist Don Lemon shared that he’s leaving X but will continue on Bluesky and other platforms.
Last year, advertisers like IBM, NBCUniversal, and Comcast left X over concerns about their ads appearing alongside pro-Nazi content and hate speech, with Musk intensifying tensions by endorsing an antisemitic conspiracy theory.
Bluesky has referenced its competitive relationship to X through tongue-in-cheek comments, including an Election Day post on X referencing Musk watching voting results come in with President-elect Donald Trump.
“I can guarantee that no Bluesky team members will be sitting with a presidential candidate tonight and giving them direct access to control what you see online,” Bluesky said.