X (Twitter) Statistics 2026: Users, News, Revenue

Year by year, X's US reach tells a short story. In 2018, 24% of US adults told Pew Research Center they used Twitter, the highest share Pew has recorded for the site. By 2025 that was 21% for X, and in 2026 it's 18%. That 18% is the figure I'd quote today for how many American adults use X.

The second number worth knowing is about news, not use. In 2026, 10% of US adults regularly get news on X, but among people who use X, 57% say they regularly get news there. Fewer people use it than in its peak years, and the ones who do use it heavily for news.

Last checked 12 November 2026.

X year by year, 2012 to 2026

Pew has tracked the site since 2012, when it was still Twitter. Its survey method has changed over that time, from phone to web and mail and then a mix, so Pew itself treats the long trend with some caution. Read the line below as a direction, not a precise measure of change.

2018: 24% of US adults said they use Twitter, the highest share in Pew's table since it began tracking the site in 2012 (2018 data). Source: Pew Research Center.
2020: 15% of US adults regularly got news on Twitter (2020 data). Source: Pew Research Center.
2021: Twitter reported 217 million average monetizable daily active users in Q4, up 13% year on year, in the last annual report it filed before going private (2021 data). Source: Twitter Form 10-K for 2021.
2025: 21% of US adults said they ever use X, formerly Twitter (2025 data). Source: Pew Research Center.
2025: 23% of US adults used X for news, 8 points more than the year before, in what Reuters describes as a busy US news year (2025 data). Source: Reuters Institute.
2026: 18% of US adults said they ever use X (2026 data). Source: Pew Research Center.
2026: use of X for news fell by 7 percentage points in the US, the biggest change among US social and video networks (2026 data). Source: Reuters Institute.
2026: 10% of US adults said they regularly get news on X, against 15% in 2020 (2026 data). Source: Pew Research Center.

The Reuters Institute adds a useful note on that 7-point fall: the 2026 figure is roughly where X sat in past years other than 2025. In other words, 2025 was the outlier, and 2026 is a return to the usual level rather than a collapse.

Who uses X in America

Pew's 2026 survey of US adults breaks X use down by age, sex, ethnicity, income, education, place and politics. The age gap is the widest, and the political gap is the narrowest.

31% of US adults aged 18 to 29 use X, against 7% of those aged 65 and over (2026 data). Source: Pew Research Center.
23% of US men use X, against 14% of US women (2026 data). Source: Pew Research Center.
27% of Asian, 25% of Black, 20% of Hispanic and 16% of White US adults use X; Pew's Asian estimate covers English speakers only (2026 data). Source: Pew Research Center.
24% of US adults with household income of $100,000 or more use X, against 14% of those under $30,000 (2026 data). Source: Pew Research Center.
22% of US college graduates use X, against 14% of adults with a high school education or less (2026 data). Source: Pew Research Center.
21% of urban, 19% of suburban and 14% of rural US adults use X (2026 data). Source: Pew Research Center.
20% of Republican and Republican-leaning US adults use X, against 19% of Democratic and Democratic-leaning adults (2026 data). Source: Pew Research Center.

Put together, the typical US X user skews young, male, urban, better off and university-educated, with almost no difference by party. If you're weighing X against other networks for a business audience, my LinkedIn statistics and Instagram numbers are set out the same way, so you can compare like with like.

News on X, in the US and around the world

This is where X still stands out. A smaller share of people use it, but those who do treat it as a news source more than users of most other networks. The US figures come from Pew's social media and news fact sheet, from a survey run from 24 to 30 August 2026. The global figures come from the Reuters Institute's Digital News Report, which surveys people across many markets.

57% of X users regularly get news there, level with Facebook users (2026 data). Source: Pew Research Center.
53% of TikTok users, 46% of Instagram users and 41% of YouTube users regularly get news on those sites, against 57% of X users (2026 data). Source: Pew Research Center.
15% of US men regularly get news on X, against 6% of US women (2026 data). Source: Pew Research Center.
18% of US adults aged 18 to 29 regularly get news on X, against 4% of those aged 65 and over (2026 data). Source: Pew Research Center.
16% of Republican and Republican-leaning US adults regularly get news on X, against 12% of Democratic and Democratic-leaning adults (2026 data). Source: Pew Research Center.
12% of people across 48 markets used X for news each week, behind Facebook at 36% and YouTube at 30% (2025 data). Source: Reuters Institute.
+8 points in the US, +6 in Australia and +6 in Poland: the biggest rises in use of X for news that year (2025 data). Source: Reuters Institute.
2% or less of people used each of Threads, Bluesky and Mastodon for news globally (2025 data). Source: Reuters Institute.
15% of people aged 18 to 24 used X for news after a fall that year (2026 data). Source: Reuters Institute.
More than half of X users see it as a useful way of getting the news; X and YouTube were the only two networks where that was true (2026 data). Source: Reuters Institute.

So the newer rivals haven't taken X's news role yet. In 2025 Threads, Bluesky and Mastodon each reached 2% or less of people for news, against 12% for X. Politics shows a small lean: Pew says Republicans are slightly more likely than Democrats to get news on X.

Twitter's last annual report, 2021

These are the last full-year figures Twitter filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, in a Form 10-K filed on 16 February 2022, before the company went private. They're from 2021, so treat them as history, not as a description of X today. Twitter later said in its 2022 reporting that it had recast some user figures; those revisions aren't checked here.

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$5.08 billion in total revenue for 2021, up 37% on 2020 (2021 data). Source: Twitter Form 10-K for 2021.
$4.51 billion in advertising revenue for 2021, up 40% on 2020 (2021 data). Source: Twitter Form 10-K for 2021.
$571.8 million in data licensing and other revenue for 2021 (2021 data). Source: Twitter Form 10-K for 2021.
$2.84 billion in US revenue and $2.24 billion in international revenue for 2021 (2021 data). Source: Twitter Form 10-K for 2021.
$221.4 million net loss for 2021 (2021 data). Source: Twitter Form 10-K for 2021.
Under 5% of monetizable daily active users in Q4 2021 were false or spam accounts, by Twitter's own internal sample estimate, which wasn't independently audited (2021 data). Source: Twitter Form 10-K for 2021.
Over 7,500 full-time employees worked at Twitter as of 31 December 2021 (2021 data). Source: Twitter Form 10-K for 2021.

One current figure comes from X itself. It isn't about users, but developers and researchers ask for it.

3 million Post reads a month is the cap on X's pay-per-usage API plans, per its developer documentation, updated November 2026 (2026 data). Source: X Developer Platform.

X figures in one table, with citation and method

Measure	Figure	Source and year
US adults who ever use X	18%	Pew, 2026
US adults who ever use X	21%	Pew, 2025
US adults 18-29 who use X	31%	Pew, 2026
US adults who regularly get news on X	10%	Pew, 2026
X users who regularly get news there	57%	Pew, 2026
Weekly use of X for news, global	12%	Reuters Institute, 2025
US adults using X for news	23%	Reuters Institute, 2025
Average mDAU at last annual report	217 million	Twitter 10-K, Q4 2021
Total revenue	$5.08 billion	Twitter 10-K, 2021

How to cite this page

Bullock, Lilach. "X (Twitter) statistics." lilachbullock.com, https://www.lilachbullock.com/x-twitter-statistics/. The figures are from the named original sources, so please can you cite those too.

How this page was checked

An original source here means the organisation that ran the survey or filed the accounts: Pew Research Center, the Reuters Institute, Twitter's SEC filing and X's developer documentation. Pew's tables were read column by column under each header, because blank cells in its 2025 and 2026 rows can shift the numbers when the table is flattened. Survey sources are linked. Company-published figures, including Twitter's 10-K and X's documentation, are named but not linked. Last checked 12 November 2026.

Your X questions

What share of US adults use X?

Pew found 18% of US adults ever use X in its 2026 survey, down from 21% in 2025.

How many Americans get news on X?

In 2026, 10% of US adults regularly get news on X, while 57% of X users say they regularly get news there.

How many people use X for news worldwide?

The Reuters Institute found 12% of people across 48 markets used X for news each week in 2025.

How many users did Twitter report before it went private?

Twitter's last annual report showed 217 million average monetizable daily active users in Q4 2021, up 13% year on year.

Who is most likely to use X in the US?

Younger adults: in 2026, 31% of US adults aged 18 to 29 used X, against 7% of those 65 and over.

Published and maintained by the Lilach Bullock team, covering marketing, AI and business growth.