Elon Musk Warns Twitter Users Will Lose Followers Due to Purge of Inactive Accounts

The Twitter CEO announced that the platform will remove numerous inactive accounts, warning users to expect a dip in followers in the process.

This is an image of Elon Musk
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BEVERLY HILLS, CA - FEBRUARY 22: CEO of Tesla and Space X Elon Musk attends the 2015 Vanity Fair Oscar Party hosted by Graydon Carter at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on February 22, 2015 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

This is an image of Elon Musk

Twitter is doing an account cleanup. 

On Monday the CEO of the social platform, Elon Musk, announced the news through a tweet, saying, “We’re purging accounts that have had no activity at all for several years, so you will probably see follower count drop.” 

We’re purging accounts that have had no activity at all for several years, so you will probably see follower count drop

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 8, 2023

Per Twitter’s policy, users must log into their account at least once every 30 days to avoid removal due to inactivity. 

Musk also replied to pushback from a user concerned about “deleting inactive accounts and all their historic tweets” and asking to “save it all.”

“The accounts will be archived,” he replied. “But it is important to free up abandoned handles.”

But it is important to free up abandoned handles

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 8, 2023

Since the 51-year-old mogul took majority ownership, he has made seemingly never-ending changes. Last week the billionaire threatened to move National Public Radio’s Twitter account to another company’s platform because a broadcaster halted posting content to NPR’s 52 official Twitter feeds in protest. According to NPR, the media org quit Twitter after Musk said the government influenced its editorial content. 

This spring the blue verified checkmark was removed from a huge assortment of profiles including journalists, celebrities, and high-ranking politicians. The reasoning was geared around Musk’s rollout of Twitter’s Blue subscription system. The service offers account verification is said to help battle issues concerning bot accounts. 

As checkmarks started disappearing, Musk said he was “personally” paying for some accounts to remain verified. This came as users noticed blue checks beside profiles that announced they wouldn’t be giving Musk their money, like LeBron James

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