US Vice President JD Vance has officially joined the social media platform Bluesky, seen as a rival to X, and has urged his more than four million followers to sign up as well.
Vance created his Bluesky account on Wednesday and shared images of his first posts on X. “Just set up my page on @bluesky; hope to see you guys there!” he wrote.
In his inaugural message on Bluesky, the vice president said, “Hello Bluesky, I’ve been told this app has become the place to go for common-sense political discussion and analysis. I’m thrilled to be here to engage with all of you.”
However, his debut was briefly interrupted when Bluesky suspended his account shortly after it was created, according to US media reports.
A user on the platform, popular among progressives who oppose President Donald Trump and who have grown critical of X’s perceived right-wing shift, celebrated the suspension as the “quickest block ever.”
Vance has not publicly addressed the brief suspension, but his account was quickly reinstated.
In a statement to Newsweek, Bluesky explained that an automated system mistakenly flagged the account as a possible impersonator.
“Vice President Vance’s account was briefly flagged by our automated systems that try to detect impersonation attempts, which have targeted public figures like him in the past,” Bluesky said. The company added that the account was swiftly restored and verified to confirm its authenticity.
Bluesky, which began offering verification blue checks in April, officially welcomed the vice president to the platform following the incident.
While neither Bluesky nor X has disclosed their current user numbers, industry estimates suggest that as of early 2025, X had roughly 600 million active users, while Bluesky’s user base stood at around 30 million.
Vance, who has already gathered more than 6,000 followers on Bluesky, also used the platform to express support for conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s recent opinion on transgender healthcare for minors. Vance called Thomas’s comments “quite illuminating.”
On Wednesday, the US Supreme Court upheld legislation prohibiting gender-affirming medical treatments for transgender minors—a key issue in the nation’s ongoing cultural debates.
Bluesky was launched in 2019 by Jack Dorsey, who also co-founded and previously led Twitter before its 2022 purchase by billionaire Elon Musk. Following Musk’s takeover and rebranding of Twitter as X, the platform has increasingly attracted a conservative audience, while Trump himself primarily communicates through his Truth Social platform.
