Mark Zuckerberg’s ‘Twitter Killer’ App Threads Boasts 10 Million New Users in First Seven Hours Per Report

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Meta launched its new Threads app on Wednesday night and judging by the sign-ups Mark Zuckerberg reported in the first few hours, the service looks like it could be a major source of competition for Twitter.

Meta has described Threads as a text-based conversation app that will work in tandem with Instagram to let users hold online discussions in real time.

Here’s a summary of Thread’s functionality, via Axios:

The new app allows existing Instagram users to use their login credentials to log into Threads. As with Instagram, Threads users can follow friends and creators with shared interests — including the accounts and content they already follow on Instagram. Everyone who joins Threads who is under 16 in the U.S. will have their account set to private by default. Thread users can share posts up to 500 characters long, in addition to links, photos, and videos up to 5 minutes in length.

The app went live in the United States at 7:00 p.m., and Zuckerberg announced that it had surpassed 10 million users in its first seven hours. So far, Elon Musk doesn’t seem impressed, for the Twitter CEO commented, “It is infinitely preferable to be attacked by strangers on Twitter than indulge in the false happiness of hide-the-pain Instagram.”

The layout and structure of Threads has drawn many comparisons to Twitter, with observers calling it a “Twitter killer” and saying the platforms are likely to fight for users while Zuckerberg and Musk literally fight each other in their anticipated cage match throwdown. The competition posed by Threads will increase the pressure on Musk since Twitter has witnessed mass layoffs, service overhauls, public discontent, and significant financial decline from loss of ad sales since he took it over.

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