A tech salesperson surprised me recently by saying X — formerly Twitter — had become useful for his work again.
It’s been a while since I’d heard that. Sure, if you’re into OnlyFans, political ragebait or crypto scams, X still has its uses.
But for people making career moves or simply having fun? Many had written it off as a gaudy backwater. I don’t have hard numbers, but I spend enough time scrolling to get a feel: much of Europe’s tech crowd — especially women — have moved to LinkedIn.
Were we premature? Lately I’ve been back on X, trawling for story ideas as I might on Reddit.
The content seems better — perhaps because there’s no US presidential election this year, and I’ve muted Elon Musk and a few other noisy accounts. The recent scandal where X’s AI bot Grok was de-robing people appears to have subsided.
We’re also short on alternatives. Facebook looks its age; LinkedIn, though improved, risks drowning in AI-written posts; Bluesky and Threads have yet to capture sustained attention.
So is X worth a second look? I asked around and got very different answers.
‘A generational run’
Paris-based investor Michael Jackson, himself a prolific poster and provocateur, argues no platform matches X's breadth or influence. “If Europeans retreat from using X, it's just going to diminish the ability of European voices being heard on global topics,” he says.
He’s firmly in the X camp, even if he’s active on LinkedIn too. “X has been on a generational run over the past month or so,” he tells me. “LinkedIn, on the other hand, is just corporate Bluesky, which is garbage.”
German investor Andreas Klinger is among a shrinking group of dedicated X posters in Europe, though his enthusiasm is waning.
He agrees the platform still matters, especially for founders courting US investors. “But X is borderline useless at this point,” he says. “Most of the content is MAGA talking points.”
By MAGA, he means the Make America Great Again cohort, which at this point includes a fair few US investors.
“Researchers don’t post there much anymore either,” Klinger adds. “Which is a shame [...]Twitter is still addictive, just less fun. More like a meth addiction.”
‘Amazing for relationships’
Not everyone is disillusioned. “I find it really good,” says Yoram Wijngaarde, CEO of data analytics platform Dealroom. "So much that I can’t be on it too long — just a few minutes — as I soon feel overwhelmed. But I almost always learn something important."
Seb Johnson, who writes the Scaling Europe newsletter, has just over 8k followers on X versus 90k on LinkedIn. Despite the smaller audience, he says engagement on X is deeper.
“It’s amazing for actually talking to people and building relationships,” he says. “People are far more responsive on X than LinkedIn, especially senior people. A lot of big founders and investors don’t manage their own LinkedIn accounts but they do on X.”
Johnson is also making money from his posts, thanks to features introduced under Musk’s ownership. “I’m only making a few hundred dollars a week, but it feels great, especially since I don’t earn anything directly from LinkedIn.”
Still, he clearly recognises the drawbacks of X’s more relaxed approach to content moderation. “I’ve seen countless people die on there,” he adds, “either in war zones, or random clips, as well as porn, violence, and just so much nonsense.
“As a creator it’s 100 times better than LinkedIn. As a consumer, it’s a minefield.”
That chaotic newsfeed is exactly why many still stay away.
“I keep wanting to go back,” says Renée Shaw, a creator at German AI company Tl;dr. “But I’m terrified of sinking time into the abyss.”
