Bluesky says it sold out of shirts that call out CEOs who seek to 'control your experience online'
Samantha Burkardt/SXSW Conference & Festivals via Getty Images
- Bluesky CEO Jay Graber recently wore a T-shirt that appeared to take a dig at Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
- The company began selling the same shirt online on Thursday afternoon.
- A Bluesky spokesperson told BI that it sold out within 30 minutes.
Bluesky is taking another shot at the Mark Zuckerbergs of the tech world.
During the week of SXSW in Austin, Bluesky CEO Jay Graber donned a black T-shirt imprinted with a Latin phrase: "Mundus sine caesaribus" or "A world without Ceasars."
The shirt appeared to reference the Meta CEO, who wore a similar boxy, black T-shirt with a Latin phrase likening himself to Roman general Julius Caesar: "Aut Zuck aut nihil" or "Either Zuck or nothing."
On Thursday afternoon, Bluesky started slinging the same shirt Graber wore at the Austin conference. The shirt sold out within 30 minutes, according to Bluesky spokesperson Emily Liu.
Liu told BI that the shirt signaled the ethos of the social media platform.
"Jay wore the shirt onstage at SXSW to emphasize Bluesky's democratic approach, where a single CEO or company doesn't control your experience online — and looks like people resonated with that vision," Liu said in an email.
Graber said in a Bluesky post that sales of the shirt launched while she was on a flight and sold out before she landed.
The company declined to share how many shirts it sold.
Since Twitter rebranded to X after Elon Musk's 2022 takeover, some users have decamped to alternative social media platforms like Bluesky. Meta, the parent company of social platforms Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, launched its X alternative, Threads, in 2023.
The migration continues a trend of online users seeking sites that conform closer to their political or cultural beliefs.
Bluesky, which was founded by Jack Dorsey in 2019, saw a surge in users after the election and registered 30 million users as of January, the company said.