Elon Musk announced on December 9, 2022, that the social media company intends to delete 1.5 billion accounts. Musk went on to say that the deletions would be obvious for accounts with no tweets or who haven’t logged in in years.
“Twitter will soon start freeing the namespace of 1.5 billion accounts,” Musk wrote on his account. “These are obvious account deletions with no tweets or log-ins for years.” Twitter’s average monetizable daily active usage was 237.8 million in the second quarter, up 16.6% compared to the same period last year, according to a financial results statement released on July 22.
Musk previously promised to delete inactive Twitter accounts. He announced in November that accounts that had been inactive for 15 years would be purged. It’s unclear how long an account can be inactive before being marked for deletion. Musk hinted in October that accounts that had been dormant for more than a year might also be at risk.
Musk confirmed in November that he will purge accounts that have not been active in the last 15 years when he wrote, “Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in the coming months.” “We will keep what works and change what doesn’t.” on Nov. 9. He also agreed with a post from October that suggested an account gets deleted if it has been inactive for more than a year.
Musk announced on November 30 that Twitter has begun removing spam accounts, an issue he stressed before purchasing the company for $44 billion at the end of October. Musk has made rapid and contentious changes to Twitter since taking over the social media company, including ending remote work for employees and laying off half of its workforce.