Jay Graber, CEO of Bluesky, declares X rival to be 'billionaire proof'.

• Jay Graber, CEO of Bluesky, stated on CNBC that Bluesky's open design aims to enable users to retain all of their followers if they choose to leave the service, which could hinder potential acquisition attempts.
• Graber stated that the billionaire proof lies in the design of everything, and if someone bought or if the Bluesky company failed, everything would be open source.
• Since the U.S. presidential election, Bluesky has gained more than 7 million new users, bringing its total to over 21 million.

Since the presidential election, Bluesky has gained popularity and is now competing with Elon Musk's X and Threads. However, Bluesky CEO Jay Graber advises potential acquirers that Bluesky is "billionaire proof."

In an interview with CNBC's "Money Movers," Graber stated that Bluesky's open design allows users to retain their followers even if they choose to leave the service, which could hinder potential acquisition attempts.

"The billionaire proof lies in the way everything is designed, and if someone bought or if the Bluesky company went down, everything would be open source," Graber stated. "Unlike Twitter, we would always have the option to immediately move without having to start over."

In 2022, Elon Musk purchased Twitter, resulting in the departure of millions of users. Since then, Bluesky has grown to have over 21 million users, but is still significantly smaller than X and Threads, which were launched by Facebook's parent in July 2023.

X and Meta didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

In October, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that Threads has approximately 275 million monthly users. However, in May, Elon Musk claimed that X has 600 million monthly users. According to market intelligence firm Sensor Tower, as of October, X has an estimated 318 million monthly users.

In 2019, Bluesky was established as an internal Twitter project under Jack Dorsey's leadership as CEO. It later became an independent public benefit corporation in 2022. Recently, Dorsey announced that he is no longer a member of Bluesky's board.

"In 2019, Jack had a vision for a better social media platform, and he chose me to build it. We are grateful for him for setting up this project, and we have continued to work on it. Our goal is to create an open-source social network that empowers users to take control of their online presence. Unlike anything that has come before, our platform is transparent, user-centric, and puts the power back in the hands of the people."

Bluesky plans to offer subscriptions for special features and expand its "developer ecosystem" with additional services for third-party coders, according to Graber.

Graber stated that Bluesky has rejected the idea of allowing advertisers to use algorithms to recommend ads to users.

Graber stated that there is a lot on the roadmap, and he will reveal what they won't do for monetization. He emphasized that they won't create an algorithm that forces ads on users, trapping them. Bluesky has experienced significant growth in the past, with 2 million users added in September after X's suspension in Brazil due to content moderation policy violations and related legal issues.

In October, Bluesky revealed that it secured $15 million in a funding round led by Blockchain Capital. The company has now raised a total of $36 million, as per Pitchbook. The future is uncertain regarding how the Trump administration will handle the antitrust action against Google.