Jamie Lee Curtis is no stranger to fighting against the horrors of film as one of the genre’s most well-known Scream Queens, but it looks like there is one terror she can’t deal with anymore and that’s Elon Musk’s social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. The actress is the latest Hollywood celebrity to depart X after it turned into what some believe is a toxic environment run by the tech-billionaire, businessman, and now politician under Donald Trump.
Curtis took to her Instagram page and posted an image of her now deactivated X handle with a caption that reads, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Courage to change the things I can. And the wisdom to know the difference.” This is a reference to the Serenity Poem, which is a cornerstone of Alcoholics Anonymous and is credited to theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. Perhaps X is now an addiction that some feel they need to quit as it’s gradually changing into a place people no longer recognize.
Celebrities have been talking about quitting X since Musk took over the platform, but things took an even bigger turn as he got heavily involved in American politics and became one of Trump’s biggest backers, often turning X into a campaign platform for the now future President. It’s likely due to this support that Trump recently appointed Musk to head the new Department of Government Efficiency alongside Vivek Ramaswamy to, as they put it, slash government bureaucracy and regulations.
Thousands Are Beginning To Depart X For Other Platforms
Celebrities and everyday people alike are announcing their departures from X, or that they will be doing so in the near future. Bette Midler deactivated her account the night of the election, which saw Trump defeating Vice President Kamala Harris to become the next President of the United States. Today also saw U.K.’s The Guardian announcing, via Deadline, that it would no longer be posting on the platform with a note to its readers that stated, “We think that the benefits of being on X are now outweighed by the negatives and that resources could be better used promoting our journalism elsewhere.” They also noted that X is now a “toxic” platform that seems to promote conspiracy theories and is being used by Musk to push his own political agenda and discourse.
Related
Hollywood Reacts to Surprising Donald Trump Election Victory
Hollywood is reacting to Trump’s second term victory with mostly shock & disgust.
Other notable users that have left X include NPR, which departed last year, and the Berlin Film Festival, stating last week that they would be exiting the platform at the end of the year. Don’t be surprised if more users vacate the X premises, as rumors are swirling that Musk plans to merge the platform with Truth Social – the social media entity owned by Trump and launched in 2022 when he was banned from Twitter before Musk’s acquisition and rebranding of the platform.
A recent browse through X – once you dig through an algorithm that has turned into a love letter to Trump – shows users posting about the platforms they’re moving to once they leave X. Popular choices are Bluesky (started by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey), Mastodon, and Threads, the latter of which counts 275 million monthly users as of October 2024. Following the election, Bluesky accumulated 700,000 new users. It would come as no surprise if these platforms continue to grow, as users want to use a space that doesn’t force-feed them an agenda, discourse, or misinformation.