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By Sirena Bergman
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As the battle for the presidency played out between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris on the campaign trail, a parallel skirmish was breaking out online between two billionaire entrepreneurs who developed into surrogates for the presidential hopefuls.
Now, it seems one of them is exiting the chat.
It began in 2022 when Elon Musk appeared to rebrand not just the social media platform he had recently acquired, but also his political views. Just a month after taking over Twitter, now known as X, he posted encouraging followers to vote Republican in the November midterm elections, despite previously backing Democrats. By March 2024, he was expressing support for Trump, whom he went on to officially endorse in July.
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As Musk became increasingly vocal about his views, one of his frequent critics was fellow celebrity businessperson Mark Cuban. Best known as an investor on Shark Tank, Cuban was a once-supporter of Trump running for president, but reversed course during his first campaign after being put off by Trump's divisive rhetoric. While Cuban has vocally backed Democrats since, his activism ramped up when Kamala Harris became the presumptive presidential candidate after Joe Biden dropped out of the race in July.
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On X, Musk and Cuban frequently sparred, trading blows about everything from physical appearance to the legality of their campaign tactics. Ultimately, Musk came out on top—not only did his candidate win the election, but he has been appointed to lead a government department named after what appears to be his favorite meme. Cuban now wants to leave the ring altogether.
Along with a wave of celebrities, brands, and news outlets, Cuban has joined in the mass retreat from Musk-owned X following the election, and instead put his social media efforts into one of its most recognizable competitors: Bluesky.
The platform, which was originally conceived within Twitter, has become a haven for former X users who turned against it after Musk took over, due to functional or ideological opposition to new leadership. But Bluesky's growth has hugely accelerated in recent weeks—CEO Jay Graber told Newsweek it had added 5.5 million users since the election, bringing its total base to over 20 million. It's still only a fraction of X's other big competitor, Meta's Threads, which Mark Zuckerberg said had 275 million monthly active users on October 30, but the latter is inextricably tied to Instagram and has so far lacked the news-making impact of Twitter's heyday.
With increasingly influential figures moving to Bluesky, it could be poised to take that mantel—and Cuban seems willing to lead the way.
Cuban has expressed interest in the role Bluesky might play in the social media ecosystem in the past. Between May and July 2023 he posted on the platform around two dozen times, and concluded that he sees it as more "social" than X was, but wrote that he preferred "more real-time news and interesting engagement and information."
Natalie Bidnick Andreas, an assistant professor with the department of communications at the University of Texas at Austin, told Newsweek that Cuban's assessment is largely accurate.
"X established itself early as a real-time news hub, benefiting from a critical mass of journalists, public figures, and an infrastructure optimized for breaking news. In contrast, Bluesky is still emerging, both in terms of its user base and its functionality," she said.
Andreas believes that Bluesky's structure may prioritize community over virality, which could limit its ability to become a "newsmaker" in the traditional sense.
But following the election, Cuban's engagement with X, where he has a paid account with 8.9 million followers, seems to have slowed. On November 6, he posted his congratulations to Trump and Musk; he also reportedly deleted various posts in support of Harris, which he told Fortune was a "non-event" and in line with his prior behavior on the platform. His posts have since focused primarily on promoting companies he is involved with and re-posting other accounts.
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Meanwhile on Bluesky, Cuban is posting up a storm. After 16 months of silence on the platform, he announced his return on November 12 with a post reading: "Hello, less hateful world."
Cuban went on to tell his followers not to expect "any politics or speculation about what might happen for a while," however just the next day he asked for opinions on Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), headed up by Musk. Cuban has also reshared a post critical of Trump's government appointees. Newsweek has reached out to Cuban for comment.
Andreas said that Cuban's quick pivot on posting about politics might be down to him seeing the differences in the platform, which has a vastly smaller user base than X. "This dynamic is particularly appealing to individuals seeking refuge from the often adversarial nature of political discourse on platforms like X," Andreas said.
So far, Cuban's posts on Bluesky are not coming close to the type of engagement he received on X, which is unsurprising given that despite being one of its most prominent users, his following stands at a comparatively measly 500,000. But Cuban has been outspoken in his view that this could be positive.
In an apparent dig at X, he thanked people for replying to his DOGE post, saying, "Best part of the responses were no ad hominem attacks." He also shared a post by Lizzo, who also recently joined the platform, praising its lack of negativity, and he has explicitly said he does not want Bluesky to replicate X, TikTok, or Instagram when it comes to the kinds of abusive pile-ons that can occur.
Just my 2 cents. But my goal is to ignore the trolls. Give them zero attention. Block them if they annoy me. I think the worst thing we can do on this site is re-create the ad hominem/ personal attacks that occur across comments on Twitter/insta/tiktok/ etc
Andreas believes that this sense that Bluesky is a less toxic environment speaks to "its nascent stage and careful community management." Smaller platforms inherently allow for greater social norms to develop around positivity and constructive interaction, she said. "However, as the user base grows, this dynamic could be tested."
By flocking to Bluesky to leave behind the ever-increasing abuse on other platforms, high-profile users like Cuban could be driving a wave of users to follow their lead, which has the potential to destroy the very thing that made it appealing.
"Bluesky's decentralized ethos gives it the potential to foster distinct, self-governed subcultures. This could result in a more diverse ecosystem of interactions but also challenges in maintaining cohesion and civility," Andreas said.
Cuban's most recent posts may suggest the friction is beginning already, but he's fighting against it. In response to a Trump supporter who shared an abusive comment, he encouraged liberal use of the "block" functionality, and also called out a user who suggested Trump supporters weren't welcome in the space, saying he wanted Bluesky to "have all perspectives."
Despite some potential teething issues, Andreas believes it makes sense to be optimistic about the future of the platform, which has some unique features that could help it stand the test of time as a refuge for those abandoning X.
"Threads, with its Meta-backed infrastructure, may prioritize seamless user experience and mass appeal, while Bluesky's trajectory might lean towards innovation in governance and decentralized engagement. Time will tell," she said.
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