The microblogging site now says it has more than 15 million users, up from nine million in September.

Social media platform Bluesky has gained more than a million new users since the US presidential election, benefiting from an exodus of people unhappy with the direction of X under billionaire owner Elon Musk.

The microblogging site said Wednesday it had 15 million users, up from about nine million in September.

Founded in 2019 by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, Bluesky has built a reputation as a haven for left-wing users dissatisfied with X’s right turn under Musk’s stewardship.

Some Bluesky users have cited Musk’s alliance with newly elected US President Donald Trump and a rise in hateful content on X as reasons for making the jump to the platform.

“Hello less hateful world,” billionaire Mark Cuban, who supported Vice President Kamala Harris during the election, posted on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, The Guardian newspaper announced it would no longer post content on X due to the “disturbing content” on the “toxic media platform”, including racism and conspiracy theories.

“The US presidential election campaign only served to underline what we have been considering for a long time: that X is a toxic media platform and that its owner, Elon Musk, has been able to use his influence to shape political discourse” , according to The Guardian. in a statement on its website.

“We believe that the benefits of participating in X are now outweighed by the negatives and that resources could be better used to promote our journalism elsewhere.”

Bluesky itself has played up its image as a haven for disaffected liberals.

After it was reported that Musk would be watching the election results with Trump, the platform posted on

X has experienced several waves of user exits since Musk took over the platform in October 2022, although the site still has a much larger user base than Bluesky.

About 115,000 US-based web visitors deactivated their