Elon Musk has more than 153 million followers on his X (previously Twitter) account, but a recent investigation says the majority of them are fraudulent and that the number has been artificially increased by millions of new, inactive accounts.

Data gathered by independent researcher Travis Brown revealed that of the 153,209,283 X accounts following Musk, almost 42% of his followers, or more than 65.3 million individuals, have no followers on their own accounts.

The industry standard for determining the size of an online platform is the number of monthly and daily active users. The value of digital ad purchases is frequently evaluated by brands and ad campaign managers based on the number of potential viewers who will see their commercials. The troubles with X's ad revenue have been widely reported on since Musk took charge. Due to Musk's management of the platform, it lost half of its top sponsors. Despite some coming back, advertising revenue is still sharply down. Just this week, a couple of other advertisers left because their advertisements showed next to content that was neo-Nazi. 

All 153 million accounts that follow Musk have an average of a little under 187 followers. The data show that only 453,000 of Musk's followers, or 0.3%, have signed up for X Premium (formerly available as Twitter Blue for $8 per month). Moreover, approximately 112 million, or over 72%, of the people who follow Musk have fewer than 10 followers.

"A lot of Musk's followers have traits that would lead people to ascertain that they are not actually using the site," the data revealed.

Regardless, some advertisers will definitely look past the problems and try to reach the potential client base if they are still using the platform. Therefore, such user counts are crucial. But do they really represent active users? Particularly after looking at the accounts Musk has, it is uncertain. However, Musk has stopped using the word "active" when reporting X's user figures, at least to our eyes.

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More than 62.5 million Musk followers have no tweets when it comes to content production.

"More than 100 million Musk followers have less than 10 tweets posted to their account," according to the data.

More than 25%, or 38.9 million, of the tech billionaire's current followers, were added on or after the day Musk acquired Twitter.

All 153 million accounts that follow Musk have a median following of just one single follower.

"All of the above data points could signal fake accounts, describe users who are inactive, or even 'lurkers' -- users who exclusively consume content. It's likely a combination of all three," the report said.

The Economic Times reported that more than 40% of Musk's followers, or just under 50 million, have four or more numbers in their @ handle on X.

Recently, the Tesla CEO asserted that there are now more than 540 million "monthly users" of X.

No one knows how many there truly are. Musk's comments about "monthly" users seem unjustified. In contrast, the millions of dormant accounts that follow him as his fans paint a completely different tale.