News of Tucker Carlson’s interview with Putin catapults X, previously Twitter, to the top spot on U.S. App Store

Downloads of X surged after former Fox News TV presenter Tucker Carlson announced he would be interviewing Russian President Vladimir Putin, causing the app to skyrocket to the top of the U.S. App Store overnight. This interview has already been conducted, according to multiple sources, including Reuters, AP, and The New York Times. The Wall Street Journal reported that the interview is due to air on Thursday.

The surge in interest surrounding the Carlson-Putin interview likely led to a significant increase in new downloads of the app, which moved up the App Store rankings around 7 PM EST and became the No. 1 app by midnight, based on data from app intelligence company Appfigures. This rise took the app, now known as X, above rival app Instagram Threads, which had held the top spot but subsequently fell to No. 2.

Appfigures’ preliminary estimates suggest that the X app registered 117,000 new downloads on Tuesday, rising from 93,000 a day earlier. As the app’s popularity surged later in the evening, the company believes that X could see a further increase in installations today.

In his video on the Elon Musk-owned platform X, Carlson announced he would be conducting Putin’s first interview with a western media outlet since Russia invaded Ukraine. A Kremlin spokesperson told Reuters that Putin agreed to the interview because he expected Carlson’s approach would differ from the “one-sided” reporting on Ukraine by many western media outlets. Put simply, Putin anticipated a sympathetic reception and a chance to reach a wider, potentially understanding audience.

Carlson, in a video shot from a high-rise in central Moscow and posted on X on Tuesday afternoon, elaborated on his reasons for interviewing Putin. He commented, “Most Americans have no idea why Putin invaded Ukraine, or what his goals are now.” The ex-Fox News host also insinuated that Americans had a right to know these facts, given that they shoulder some of the burdens of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. He further suggested that he was the only one brave enough to ask Putin for an interview — a claim quickly refuted by CNN and PBS journalist Christiane Amanpour, who posted:

Does Tucker really think we journalists haven’t been trying to interview President Putin every day since his full scale invasion of Ukraine? It’s absurd — we’ll continue to ask for an interview, just as we have for years now.

In the past, Carlson has faced criticism for seemingly showing sympathy towards Russia’s standpoint, having earlier prompted his Fox News viewers to question the true nature of the Ukraine conflict and why they harbored such animosity towards Putin.

Carlson is among a few creators who have migrated to Elon Musk’s rebranded platform X. However, Musk clarified last May after Carlson’s exit from Fox, that there was no special arrangement with Carlson and that he would be subject to the same rules as other content creators on X. This includes the rule that offers creators a portion of X’s ad revenue.

While Musk’s politics have trended more conservative recently, not all content on X reflects his views. For instance, top YouTuber MrBeast posted a video on X in January that earned him over $250,000. Former CNN anchor Don Lemon, politician Tulsi Gabbard, and Paris Hilton also have content on X.

The surge in X downloads is notable, not just because of the anticipated Tucker Carlson interview, but also because it coincides with the public launch of X’s competitor, Bluesky, which planned to launch federation this year, providing a decentralized alternative to Twitter/X akin to Mastodon but with a different underlying protocol, the AT Protocol. Despite gaining roughly 800,000 new users, Bluesky currently doesn’t rank among the top 100 free apps on the U.S. App Store.