Threads Launch

2023

Date: 5 July 2023 · Place: Meta, Menlo Park · Figures: Adam Mosseri, Threads lead and Instagram head · Mark Zuckerberg, Meta CEO · Elon Musk, X owner being targeted · Tags: Platform, X-Exodus, Launch 01. Hundred Million in Five Days Meta launches Threads on 5 July 2023 as a text-first companion app to Instagram positioned against Elon Musk's Twitter, eight months into Musk's chaotic ownership. The app reaches 100 million users in five days, breaking ChatGPT's record by two days. Mosseri leads the project from Instagram. The app launches without an explicit chronological feed, without hashtags, without DMs, all of which are added across the next six months. 02. The Replacement Wars Threads is the largest of several attempts to replace Twitter during the post-Musk exodus, alongside Bluesky, Mastodon, Nostr, and Spill. By February 2024 Threads claims 130 million MAU but engagement is sleepy. Bluesky pulls the journalists and political left; X retains the right. The town square fractures into four. Sources • Meta, Threads launch announcement (5 July 2023) • Reuters, 'Threads Hits 100 Million Users in Five Days' (10 July 2023) • The Verge, 'Threads Launches as Meta's Twitter Killer' (5 July 2023)