[Sketchiest Guy in the World Voice] Hey child, wanna see the X algorithm? It’s proper over here.
No actually, Elon Musk seems to be partly making good on his promise a couple of week in the past to open up the X suggestions algorithm for public perusal and enter, theoretically making the most important feed on his social media platform open supply. He beforehand promised he would do that again in 2022, and type of did by publishing one snapshot of the code shortly afterward, however that repository wasn’t saved sufficiently up to date to make the X platform qualify as most individuals’s thought of an open supply product.
This launch, then, is a promising step in the route of X actually being an open supply product. The following step can be to replace this code repository in 4 weeks, as Musk promised he would do.
Even then, this launch wouldn’t imply the open sourcing of X might be marked “promise saved.” In his January 10 X publish promising this launch, Musk stated he would launch “all code used to decide what natural and promoting posts are really useful to customers.” From the place I’m sitting, that has nonetheless not even come shut to taking place.
That’s as a result of on November 26 of final yr, the accounts for Musk and Grok posted that Grok is used to type the posts on everybody’s Following feed by default, though it may be toggled from “standard” to “latest” to make it chronological. That algorithm seems to be lacking. The Following and For You feeds on X even have adverts, which Musk has indicated are served through an algorithm that he stated he would make public. So by my depend there needs to be not less than two extra releases, probably extra.
Gizmodo reached out to X for information about whether or not or not the promoting and Following feed code has already been launched, or if will probably be launched sooner or later in the future. We are going to replace if we hear again.
However anyway, right here we are with a contemporary dump of code. The very first thing you must know is that it “sucks,” in accordance to Musk.
Sure, the algorithm sucks
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 20, 2026
Earlier on the identical day Musk stated the algorithm sucked, X head of product Nikita Bier seemed to indicate that he was proud of it, noting that in the six months from July of 2025 to this month, each day engagement time from new customers has gone from lower than 20 minutes to someplace in the mid-30s. Who’s proper? Is it higher than ever, or does it suck?
The issue could also be that Musk simply can’t appear to clear out all the cussed wokeness residue stuffed into X again when it was known as Twitter. His tweet saying it sucked was a response to former online game government Mark Kern complaining that the algorithm weights posts much less closely if they arrive from accounts which have been blocked loads. Kern says he suspects that this biases the algorithm towards posts from right-wing accounts like his personal. That’s believable I suppose, although it nearly definitely biases the algorithm towards accounts that publish plenty of harassment and abuse, so make of that what you’ll.
Judging from what’s in the plain textual content readme paperwork in the Github dump, this newest X algorithm is what you in all probability count on in case you use X: an replace to the TikTok technique of hooking customers. My impression of what’s described is that, unsurprisingly, it prioritizes engagement, trying to work out which posts will make the consumer cease scrolling. It pulls from accounts you observe, but additionally accounts deemed to be comparable to these you observe. It’s interesting to your id, not your superego. It doesn’t matter what you assume you’re there to see, it needs to present you no matter will make you retain observing it.
As well as to sucking, Elon Musk additionally says it’s “dumb.” Replying to a criticism from blogger Robert Scoble complaining that the algorithm favors posters who hijack information occasions, Musk says the algorithm will enhance each month—seemingly referring to the four-week anticipated cadence for GitHub code dumps.
We are making an attempt to to make the algorithm much less dumb.
It’s going to enhance each month.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 20, 2026
And who is aware of, perhaps customers with wonderful concepts will dig not simply into the readme sections, however proper into the code, discover the actual issues, and move alongside solutions to Musk, and the algorithm will get extra satisfying and worthwhile over time. Alternatively, perhaps the wants of an organization that desires to hook customers so as to get them to watch adverts and generate income for itself, and the wishes of human beings who need to really feel nicely knowledgeable and completely satisfied are two completely irreconcilable ideas, and making a advice algorithm open supply so as to try to serve each these varieties of want is completely futile. I assume we’ll see which of those maybes is really true.
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