More than 40 UK charities have been recorded as leaving social media platform X for Bluesky since February.

Departures from X stepped up at the start of the year after Donald Trump was elected president and its owner Elon Musk became part of his administration in a role to reduce government spending.

The number leaving X has been recorded by the @accounts-leaving-x account on Bluesky.

It found that 43 UK based charities departed X and signed up to Bluesky over the last three months.

The number increases to around 150 when global NGOs, civil rights groups and social enterprises are included. These are most notably based in Ireland, Canada and the US.

Bluesky user ‘Kilicaslan’, who runs the account, says the tally of charities switching platforms is likely be far higher, as his list only includes charities his research has uncovered.

He said that many have left X due to its focus on division and promoting right-wing views under Musk's ownership.

“They do not want to be on a platform that Elon Musk owns; because being there means to support his (and Trump’s of course) political agenda,” said Kilicaslan.

“Besides they believe that Musk - through shadow banning and supressing liberal accounts, and algorithms - has turned X into a right-wing platform.”

He added that “most charities have realised that more followers do not necessarily mean more engagements. Even with less followers, they get more and quality engagements at Bluesky".

In addition, many charities’ target audiences have already left X, which was formerly known as Twitter, he adds.

Among the most recent UK based charities featured is Better Planet Education, which provides educational resources “to share a brighter, more sustainable future”.

It posted on X this week that “we have taken the decision to stop posting on X, at least for the time being. You can now find us on Bluesky instead, or via our other social media accounts”.

Better Planet Education (a UK-based charity providing free access to environmental education to young people and the wider public, offering balanced, factual information through collaboration with schools and teachers) stops posting on X (1.423 followers).

BlueSky: @betterplanetedu.bsky.social

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— accounts-leaving-x.bsky.social (@accounts-leaving-x.bsky.social) May 7, 2025 at 4:19 PM

Another recent UK X-departee is furniture re-use charity Richmond Furniture Scheme which announced earlier this month that “we’re no longer posting on X because we feel that it does not reflect our core values”.

Charity organisations to quit X over this period include the UK’s Charity Finance Group, which said that Musk’s platform “no longer aligns with out values”.

Others to be mentioned include UK adoption agency and children’s charity Adoption Matters, which said in March that “as a charity with children at the heart of all we do, we are leaving X due to the increasingly toxic environment”.

As of this week Kilicaslan's account has recorded more than 800 organisations and individuals, including charities, academic institutions and companies have quit X for Bluesky, leaving behind tens of thousands of followers on Musk’s platform in some cases.

For example, on leaving X in April the British Sociological Association had more than 28,000 followers on the platform.

Charity Times has reported on several charities and charity leaders already leaving X over the last year, preferring to focus their social media posting on Bluesky, LinkedIN, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram instead.

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