Bluesky Is Emerging as an Alternative to X, but Who Actually Owns the Platform?
Bluesky is owned by its CEO and everyone else who owns its stock.
Published Nov. 15 2024, 10:41 a.m. ET
In the years since Elon Musk bought Twitter (now known as X), the social media platform has become increasingly dominated by right-wing users and by Musk's own personality. Given that trend on the platform, some have started to flee to Bluesky, a platform that works a lot like Twitter but comes with a little bit less right-wing baggage.
Even as many flee to Bluesky, some also want to know more about the platform, including who owns it. This concern is understandable, especially since so many people have problems with Twitter that stem chiefly from who owns it. Here's what we know about who owns Blueksy.
Who owns Bluesky?
Bluesky is owned in part by its CEO, Jay Graber, and the company also has other influential tech figures on its board, including Jabber inventor Jeremie Miller, Techdirt founder Mike Masnick, and Blockchain Capital general partner Kinjal Shah.
The company was originally founded in 2019 by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, and it was originally part of Twitter, but the two entities parted ways in 2022.
Bluesky seems to be the Twitter alternative with the longest legs and has garnered rapid adoption in the aftermath of the 2024 election.
"Unlike other closed platforms, Bluesky is an open social network that gives users choice, developers the freedom to build, and creators independence from platforms," Emily Liu, a spokesperson for the company, explained in a statement to USA Today. The company launched publicly in February of 2024, and now, anyone can own shares in it.
It's unclear whether Bluesky's growth is sustainable, but for now, it seems like many are choosing to look at it as a viable alternative for Twitter that comes with less baggage and toxicity.
The platform may never have the kind of influence or enormous user base that Twitter commanded, and it may feel a little bit more like an ideological bubble, but some users seem to be OK with that trade-off.
Bluesky has seen 2.5 million sign-ups following the election.
According to USA Today, Bluesky saw a major jump in its user base following the election, and the app now has 16 million users. Emily Liu, the spokesperson, said that the platform is also setting records across its various engagement metrics.
"Users have also been sharing feedback that they're receiving more engagement (and higher-quality engagement) on Bluesky than on other platforms despite initially having more followers elsewhere," she said. "And most importantly, that they're having fun!"
Interestingly, the exodus from Twitter to Bluesky doesn't seem to have impacted the company's overall metrics, as they too saw a boost in their users following election day. Given that boost, it seems possible that the two platforms are becoming increasingly disentangled from one another, with more right-wing people using Twitter and more left-wing people using Bluesky.
Of course, it's probably not really quite that neat. Even so, there are likely plenty of people hoping that, whoever owns Bluesky, the app does not allow harassment and racism to exist almost unabated the way that Twitter now does under Musk's ownership.
