These Billionaires, Pop Stars And Politicians Have Already Signed Up For Meta’s Threads App

Topline

In its first day in operation, Meta’s new Threads social network—an answer to Twitter—has already attracted major celebrities from Oprah Winfrey and Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) to the Kardasians and Tom Brady, though some big names have stayed off the app.

This photo, taken in New York, Thursday, shows Meta’s new app Threads. Threads has attracted several … [+] high profile celebrities in just its first day in operation. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Key Facts

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Wednesday morning that Threads had already garnered 30 million signups, less than 24 hours after users of Meta-owned Instagram were able to start opening accounts.

Those signups include massive names like Winfrey, Kim, Kourtney and Khloe Kardashian, Kylie Jenner, Newsom, Brady, the Dalia Lama, Jennifer Lopez, Shakira, Gordon Ramsay, Michael Strahan and Ellen DeGeneres.

Large corporate brands have also signed up including Netflix, the NBA, the WNBA, Microsoft, McDonald’s, HGTV, PlayStation, Wimbledon, Ford, Charles Schwab, the BBC and Def Jam Recordings.

Four of the 15 richest people on Earth according to Forbes’ estimates have signed up for the service with verified accounts, including Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg—other famous billionaires like Mark Cuban and Richard Branson have also signed up.

The world’s wealthiest person—Elon Musk—has not signed up for Threads, and is unlikely to do so as he owns the site’s top competitor, Twitter.

However, of the 20 most followed users (excluding brand accounts) on Instagram, which Threads is connected to, only six—Jennifer Lopez, Miley Cyrus, Kylie Jenner, Kim, Kourtney and Khloe Kardashian—have signed up, leaving the app’s top three users—Christiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Selena Gomez—off of Threads as of yet according to tracking firm SocialBlade.

Threads has also so far failed to attract any of Twitter’s top 10 most-followed users including Ronaldo, Barack Obama, Taylor Swift and Narendra Modi.

Contra

As the app has only been live for less than 24 hours, most of these celebrities, politicians and public figures have posted very little. It remains to be seen whether they’ll favor it over Twitter or continue posting consistently.

Crucial Quote

“Feels like the beginning of something special, but we’ve got a lot of work ahead to build out the app,” Zuckerberg said in a Wednesday morning Threads post.

Key Background

Meta rolled out Threads after a surprise announcement Wednesday evening. Zuckerberg has made clear that the app is an explicit attempt to take over the market long enjoyed by Twitter. “I think there should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it,” he wrote in a post to the new app. “Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn’t nailed it. Hopefully we will.” Threads shares a similar format to Twitter with some small differences. The platform’s launch comes amid a rocky time for Twitter, which was purchased by Musk in October. Under Musk’s controversial leadership, the company fell to a value of $15 billion as of May, according to Fidelity, about one third of the $44 billion he paid for it. Among the controversial decisions made since Musk’s ownership began, the platform recently implemented a temporary limit to the number of tweets a user can see in one day, a move that proved unpopular with users. Twitter has also seen major outages and mass layoffs since Musk took over.

Forbes Valuation

We estimate Zuckerberg to be worth $104.3 billion, making him the eighth richest person in the world. We estimate Musk to be worth $247.9 billion, making him the richest person in the world.

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