’Is Twitter dying’: Why did Elon Musk tweet this?

Twitter's largest stakeholder Elon Musk tweeted to ask if the social media network was "dying" and to call out users such as singer Justin Bieber, who are highly followed but rarely post.

"Most of these 'top' accounts tweet rarely and post very little content," the Tesla boss wrote, captioning a list of the 10 profiles with the most followers -- a list which includes himself at number eight, with 81 million followers.

"Is Twitter dying?" he wrote.

Former US President Barack Obama appears at the top with 131 million followers, followed by stars such as Bieber, Katy Perry, Rihanna and Taylor Swift, as well as Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and football star Cristiano Ronaldo, among others.

"For example, @taylorswift13 hasn't posted anything in 3 months," Musk continued. "And @justinbieber only posted once this entire year."

Twitter recently said it will test the feature in its paid service, Twitter Blue, in the coming months. It said the test would help it “learn what works, what doesn't, and what's possible”. So it may be a while before most Twitter users get to use it, if they ever do. Twitter spokesperson Catherine Hill declined to say whether an edit feature might be rolled out for all users.

Many Twitter users - among them, Kim Kardashian, Ice T, Katy Perry and McDonald's corporate account - have long begged for an edit button. The company itself recently teased users with an April Fool's Day tweet saying “we are working on an edit button”. The official Twitter account said Tuesday that the April 1 tweet wasn't a joke and that it has been working on it since last year.

Elon Musk, Twitter Inc's biggest shareholder, on Saturday suggested a raft of changes to the social media giant's Twitter Blue premium subscription service, including slashing its price, banning advertising and giving an option to pay in the cryptocurrency dogecoin.