The deluge of goodbye messages from people leaving X began shortly after Donald Trump's election victory last week. In explaining their decision, many in the exodus cited the same thing: The huge support Elon Musk, the social media service's owner, gave the Republican candidate during the campaign and the increasing nastiness on his site.
Jody Avrigan, a podcast host and media producer with 50,000 followers on X, said on rival social media service Threads, that he was done using X, because “Elon Musk is a pretty destructive force in our society and politics, I want no part of him.” Nicole Wallace, an anchor on MSNBC with over 1 million followers on X, said on live TV that she’d “deleted Twitter today as an act of self preservation.” Tee Wattress said on Threads she'd been on X for 15 years sharing comedic takes on pop culture and reality TV, but "to see it turn into the hell scape that it is today has been devastating." Even the author and very active X user Stephen King joined Threads, telling his 7 million X followers that he was leaving the platform. "Tried to stay, but the atmosphere has just become too toxic."
