- Billionaire Mark Cuban, who has been an active Bluesky user and supporter for several months now, said this week he thinks the social media platform has gotten “ruder and more hateful.” Its liberal-heavy user base makes it challenging to raise questions or have debates with other users, even if their political ideologies align, he said.
After Elon Musk bought Twitter (now X) in late 2022, the vibes on the platform started changing, and many accounts that were verified lost their status. But the mass exodus from X came in late 2024 following the U.S. presidential election and Musk throwing his support—and millions—behind Donald Trump.
By December 2024, the platform had lost about 2.7 million active Apple and Android users in just two months, with competitor Bluesky absorbing nearly all of those users. Colloquially, it became somewhat of a safe haven for liberal users who wanted to drown out the noise of President Trump’s reelection.
“It’s people wanting to just try something new. It’s people finding their community here,” Bluesky CEO Jay Graber told Vox Media’s Peter Kafta in a June 4 podcast. “I think in general it’s both people looking for something and people looking to get away from something.”
Between November 2024 and this May, Bluesky grew from about 10 million users to 30 million, according to a Pew Research Center analysis. Many news influencers—people who regularly post about current events on the platform—lean left politically, according to the analysis.
One such figure was billionaire Mark Cuban, who supported former Vice President Kamala Harris during her presidential run in 2024, although he didn’t give her a penny for her campaign, he said in October. Cuban became a regular Bluesky user, having posted nearly 2,000 times since November 2024. When he first joined the platform, he famously posted: “Hello Less Hateful World.”
But Cuban has changed his tune. In a series of posts this week, Cuban argued Bluesky has become too much of an echo chamber, and is sending more users back to X.
“Engagement went from great convos on many topics, to agree with me or you are a nazi fascist,” Cuban wrote. “We are forcing posts to X.”
The former Shark Tank star and Dallas Mavericks owner also said he thinks Bluesky users have “grown ruder and more hateful.”
“Even if you agree with 95% of what a person is saying on a topic, if there is one point that you might call out as being more of a gray area, they will call you a fascist etc.,” said Cuban, whose current net worth is about $8.33 billion, according to Bloomberg.
Bluesky did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
Cuban also re-posted a Washington Post opinion article published Sunday titled “The Bluesky bubble hurts liberals and their causes.” Author Megan McArdle argued Bluesky’s left-leaning user base segregates it into a political silo. Cuban agreed.
“The lack of diversity of thought here is really hurting usage,” Cuban wrote in a separate Bluesky update including the Washington Post article. “The moderation and block tools on here are so advanced, if you see someone you don’t want to see on here, just block them. Don’t attack them.”
“There used to be great give and take discussions on politics and news. Not so much any more,” Cuban added. “Doesn’t have to be this way.”
