Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg believes Threads may have reached a major turning point in its rivalry with X. He says the platform is now either bigger than X or very close to surpassing it.
Speaking with journalist Alex Heath on the Sources podcast, Zuckerberg discussed the growth of Threads. He also described the way Meta now views its position in the social media market. What started as a fast-moving response to changes at Twitter has developed into one of Meta’s biggest new platforms. It is backed by hundreds of millions of monthly users.
Threads has now reached 500 million monthly active users. This gives Meta more confidence in its claim that the platform is closing the gap with X.
Zuckerberg Says Threads May Have Caught Up With X
Zuckerberg said Threads is either already bigger than X or close enough that the difference may no longer be significant. This statement reflects how quickly Threads has grown since launching in July 2023. At that time, Meta introduced the platform as a text-focused social network linked closely to Instagram.
Threads benefited immediately from Meta’s existing user base. Instagram users could quickly create Threads accounts using their existing profiles. This gave the platform a distribution advantage that most new social networks never get. Over time, though, Meta has had to prove that Threads could become more than just a temporary alternative to Twitter.
The platform’s growth to 500 million monthly active users suggests that Threads has managed to maintain momentum well beyond its initial launch period. X has previously been estimated to have around 550 million monthly users. However, direct comparisons are difficult because X does not consistently publish the same type of usage data.
That makes Zuckerberg’s claim notable. However, it is not completely straightforward to verify. Threads and X disclose audience figures differently, so determining which platform is definitively larger depends heavily on the metrics being compared.
Threads Reaches 500 Million Monthly Active Users
Threads reaching 500 million monthly active users gives Meta one of its strongest signals yet. This means the platform has established itself as a major social network.
Zuckerberg has previously spoken about the possibility of Threads eventually becoming a platform with more than one billion users. Reaching the halfway point toward that ambition shows how aggressively Meta has been able to scale the service. It has used Instagram’s existing audience and its wider family of apps.
The bigger challenge now is not simply convincing users to create Threads accounts. Instead, Meta needs people to return regularly, follow conversations, interact with creators and treat the platform as part of their everyday social media routine.
Threads has gradually added more discovery features, recommendation controls and community tools to encourage that behavior. Those updates are helping Meta move the platform away from being seen only as an X competitor. They are helping it become a social network with its own identity.
Zuckerberg Still Uses X Despite Threads Growth
Even with Threads growing rapidly, Zuckerberg continues to use X.
That detail says a lot about the current state of social media competition. Zuckerberg acknowledged that X still has communities that remain especially active in areas such as technology, artificial intelligence and real-time discussion.
For Meta, competing with X does not necessarily mean pretending the rival platform no longer matters. X still has influential communities, established creators and long-running habits that cannot simply be replicated overnight.
Zuckerberg’s continued presence on X also reflects the reality facing many creators, publishers and brands. Users do not always choose only one platform. Many people move between Threads, X, Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn depending on what kind of conversation they want to join.
Meta Keeps Expanding Threads Features
Meta has continued adding features designed to make Threads more useful as a standalone platform rather than an extension of Instagram.
Recent updates have focused heavily on community discovery, topic-based conversations and recommendation controls. Threads has expanded Communities, allowing users to find spaces centered on specific interests. This also gives Meta another way to organize conversations beyond traditional following feeds.
Meta has also introduced features such as live chats and its Your Algo controls. These give users more influence over the topics appearing in their recommendations. These tools are important because they allow Threads users to shape their experience instead of relying entirely on Meta’s automated ranking systems.
That kind of customization could help Threads develop stronger communities over time. The platform no longer needs only rapid growth. It needs recognizable groups, recurring conversations and reasons for users to open the app several times a day.
Threads and X Are Competing for Attention, Not Just Users
Monthly active users are useful for measuring scale, but they do not tell the whole story.
For creators, marketers and publishers, engagement can matter more than raw audience size. A platform can have hundreds of millions of registered or monthly users. However, it may not necessarily generate the same level of influence in breaking news, entertainment, technology or live conversations.
X still has deeply rooted communities built around news, politics, technology and major events. Threads, meanwhile, benefits from Meta’s ability to connect audiences across Instagram and its broader social media ecosystem.
That creates a slightly different battle. Threads does not necessarily need to convince every X user to leave. Meta can grow Threads by giving users another platform to use alongside X.
For many people, that is already happening. They may post on Threads for certain conversations while continuing to use X for others.
Threads Is Becoming More Than an X Alternative
When Threads launched, most conversations around the platform focused on whether Meta could take advantage of uncertainty surrounding Twitter following Elon Musk’s acquisition.
That question has changed considerably.
Threads now has hundreds of millions of monthly users, a growing collection of platform-specific features and increasingly established communities. It is no longer operating purely as an emergency alternative for people looking to leave X.
Meta appears to be positioning Threads as a long-term social platform in its own right. Its relationship with Instagram remains important, but Threads is gradually developing its own social culture, recommendation systems and content patterns.
Zuckerberg’s suggestion that Threads may already be bigger than X reflects that shift. Even if the claim remains difficult to independently verify, Threads has clearly reached a scale where comparisons with X are no longer speculative.
What Threads Growth Means for Creators and Brands
Threads becoming one of the largest text-based social platforms gives creators and brands another channel that may be worth taking more seriously.
Businesses already producing short text updates, commentary or conversational content for X and LinkedIn may find it relatively easy to test similar approaches on Threads. The bigger question is whether those posts need to be adapted for the culture developing on the platform rather than simply copied from somewhere else.
Creators may face the same challenge. Threads offers strong integration with Meta’s ecosystem and access to a rapidly growing audience. Meanwhile, X continues to hold important communities around technology, news and real-time events.
For now, there may be little reason to treat Threads and X as an either-or choice.
The more practical approach is to watch where audiences are actually engaging and build platform strategies around those behaviors.
Threads Is Now a Serious Rival to X
Threads still has work to do before anyone can confidently declare it the dominant text-based social network.
Its 500 million monthly users give Meta considerable scale. However, audience size alone does not determine cultural influence, engagement or the importance of particular communities.
What has changed is the seriousness of the competition.
Threads is no longer the new Meta app trying to prove people will continue using it after launch. It has become one of the largest social platforms in the market. Moreover, Meta is continuing to invest in features designed to make it more useful and more independent.
Whether Threads has officially overtaken X may remain debatable.
The idea that it could, however, no longer sounds far-fetched.
Sources
Social Media Today:
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/threads-might-be-bigger-than-x-says-zuckerberg/830236/
Social Media Today – Threads Reaches 500M User Milestone:
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/threads-reaches-500m-user-milestone/823099/
Yahoo Finance:
https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/meta-stock-rises-premarket-zuckerberg-084630131.html
Mobile Marketing Reads:
https://www.mobilemarketingreads.com/mark-zuckerberg-says-threads-may-already-be-bigger-than-x-as-platform-reaches-500-million-users/