By Francesco Canepa

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – The European Central Bank began posting on the Bluesky micro-blogging platform on Monday, joining a rival to Elon Musk’s X just as the U.S. billionaire ramps up his political campaigning in Europe.

Bluesky is one of several sites attempting to unseat the platform formerly known as Twitter since Musk bought it and started using it to advance his political agenda, most recently urging Germans to vote for a far-right party.

A spokesperson for the ECB stated that the central bank is seeking “to diversify (its) social media presence” and began using multiple new platforms last year, with Bluesky being “only the latest such addition”.

The ECB kicked off its Bluesky activity by sharing an interview with chief economist Philip Lane. This was also posted on X, which the ECB spokesperson affirmed it would continue to use.

Musk has been credited with helping Donald Trump win last year’s U.S. presidential election, but his platform faced criticism from misinformation experts for enabling the spread of falsehoods during the campaign.

Last week, Musk hosted the leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany party on X, a conversation which the European Commission said it would monitor for any spread of misinformation.

He has also publicly supported Italy’s right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

The ECB, under President Christina Lagarde, has made gender equality and climate change a pivotal part of its mission.

Musk has voiced opposition to diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. While claiming to “have done more for the environment than any single human on earth,” he supports Trump, who has labeled climate change a hoax.

A crypto enthusiast, Musk has criticized the Federal Reserve, remarking on X that it is “absurdly overstaffed” and sharing a senator’s post advocating for its abolition.

Notable organisations and personalities, including the British news publisher the Guardian, have departed from X. Bluesky gained 2.5 million users in the week following Trump’s election and experienced a surge in activity.

Nonetheless, with only 27 million users, Bluesky remains significantly smaller than its competitors. Threads has approximately 252 million monthly active users on its mobile app, while X claims about 317 million, according to Sensor Tower data.

European Union regulators indicated last year that Bluesky was violating EU rules by not disclosing important details, such as its user numbers within the bloc.