Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says Threads may have already surpassed X in scale, as the company’s text-based social platform reaches 500 million monthly active users three years after its launch.
Speaking in an interview with Sources, Zuckerberg said Threads is now either bigger than X or close to it, while discussing how Meta uses the two platforms and the different communities that have developed around them.
Threads reached 500 million monthly active users earlier this year, continuing its growth from the 400 million monthly users Meta reported previously. The milestone puts the platform roughly halfway toward Meta’s longer-term ambition of building Threads into a service with one billion users.
Direct comparisons with X remain difficult, however. X does not regularly publish detailed usage figures that can be directly compared with Meta’s disclosures. A SpaceX prospectus cited earlier this year put X at approximately 550 million monthly active users as of May 2026, while other figures previously associated with the platform have varied.
Zuckerberg indicated that Meta still sees value in maintaining a presence on both services. The company posts to both Threads and X because the platforms currently reach different communities, with X continuing to have a particularly active audience around technology and artificial intelligence.
That distinction is important as Threads develops beyond its initial positioning as Meta’s response to Twitter following Elon Musk’s acquisition and subsequent rebranding of the platform as X.
Threads launched in July 2023 with close integration into Instagram, giving Meta an immediate distribution channel through one of the world’s largest social platforms. It reached 100 million sign-ups within days of launch, although early engagement declined after the initial surge.
Since then, Meta has gradually expanded Threads into a more independent social network, adding features around trending conversations, communities, customized feeds and content discovery.
The company has also been working to develop a distinct interest graph for Threads rather than relying primarily on users’ Instagram activity. The shift is intended to reflect the different ways people use the two services: Instagram remains centered on visual content and existing social connections, while Threads is increasingly organized around public conversations and interest-based communities.
That approach has helped Threads establish communities around topics including sports, entertainment, books, music and current events. Meta has also introduced dedicated community features and tools designed to identify and support active contributors within individual interest groups.
Third-party usage estimates have previously suggested that Threads has already overtaken X on some measures.
Similarweb data cited earlier this year indicated that Threads had moved ahead of X in daily active mobile users and continued to expand that lead. Those figures are estimates rather than internal platform data and do not include the full extent of web usage, where X retains a stronger presence.
Monthly active users therefore remain a less certain comparison. Threads’ 500 million figure comes directly from Meta, while the absence of regularly disclosed equivalent metrics from X makes it difficult to establish definitively which service currently has the larger overall active audience.
The competition also extends beyond total user numbers. For advertisers, publishers and creators, engagement levels, audience composition and the types of conversations taking place on each platform can be more relevant than headline monthly active user figures.
X continues to have established communities around breaking news, technology, politics and real-time events. Zuckerberg’s comments suggest Meta recognizes that distinction even as Threads closes the overall audience gap.
Threads, meanwhile, has continued adding tools aimed at creators and marketers. Its recently redesigned analytics experience provides more detailed information about post performance, audience reach and how content is being discovered, alongside AI-generated summaries designed to identify account and content trends.
Meta’s longer-term objective is broader than simply overtaking X. Threads chief Connor Hayes has said the company wants Threads to become the largest platform for public conversation, with one billion users serving as a major growth target.
Reaching that scale would put Threads alongside Meta’s other major consumer platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger.
For marketers, Threads’ continued expansion creates another large-scale social channel within Meta’s advertising and content ecosystem. But whether it has definitively overtaken X remains difficult to establish without directly comparable usage data from both companies.
Zuckerberg’s latest comments nevertheless mark a shift in the competitive positioning of the two platforms. Three years after Threads launched as Meta’s alternative to Twitter, the discussion is increasingly moving from whether it can become a viable X competitor to whether it has already reached comparable scale.
Comments
Loading…