Elon Musk says that in a week, the new X algorithm, that is, all the code that determines what you see in your X feed, will be made open source.
We will make the new 𝕏 algorithm, including all code used to determine which organic and advertising posts are recommended to users, open source in 7 days.
This will be repeated every 4 weeks, with full developer notes, to help you understand what’s changed.
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 10, 2026
This comes in the middle significant public scrutiny around the world from the @grok photos of non-consenting people, including minors, scantily clad. But the expected update also concerns something Musk has claimed to want to do since he took ownership of Twitter in 2022, saying at the time that “making algorithms open source to increase trust” was part of his ambition for the site.
This latest transparency promise is probably the broadest he has made, with an actual due date attached and a faster timetable. He said in 2022“Twitter will open source all code used to recommend tweets on March 31,” giving itself a two-week window, and the site actually did so. publish a Github repository on this date containing at least one snapshot of the recommendation algorithm. Most files in this repository are from this initial download, although some appear to have been updated as recently as four months ago
It was a partial code release and hardly met everyone’s expectations of an open source social media platform. For example, a 2023 report stating that Musk demanded algorithm changes to improve the visibility of his own posts came from leaked documents and anonymous interviews with X staff members, not a simple code review. And when Musk hinted at the changes he wanted to make in 2024, Mark Cuban asked him “Can you publish the source code of the expected algorithm before implementing it? So that users can give their opinion?”
And it almost goes without saying that the site has been criticized as promoting and reinforcing right-wing views. A last year’s report purports to demonstrate that this new apparent bias is systematic. X is also one of the places where shocking, uncensored footage of Charlie Kirk’s assassination spread rapidly last year.
Another possible reason for this sudden transparency: last year, investigators in Paris, France, opened an investigation into potential fraudulent manipulation of the X algorithm.an effort Musk says “distorts French law in order to serve a political agenda and ultimately restrict freedom of expression.”
This latest expected update seems a little closer to most people’s idea of what “open source” means. Musk’s post about the change says users can expect to see the “code used to determine which organic and ad posts are recommended to users” and that the build will be “repeated every 4 weeks, with full developer notes, to help you understand what’s changed.”
