Elon Musk declared today that X, the social media site that was formerly known as Twitter, will no longer use hashtags in its advertisements and that ad hashtags are officially banned. The modification will only affect paid content and go into effect on Friday. Regular posts won’t be impacted.
After declaring that X banned ad hashtags, Musk called hashtags a “esthetic nightmare” in a different article, stating that the goal of removing them is to make promotional content look better. Over the years, Musk has been critical of hashtags, calling them “ugly” and out of date.
Musk’s comments in December 2024 urging people to completely abandon hashtag use prompted the decision. He maintained at the time that X’s AI technologies, such as the Grok chatbot created by xAI, could recognize and arrange information without the use of conventional hashtags. Musk believes that this causes the manual tagging system useless.
In 2007, Twitter presented hashtags as a means for members to organize exchange and highlight the popular subjects. The removal of hashtags from ads indicates a significant shift from one of the platform’s most iconic and early features. X has moved toward algorithm-driven discovery under Musk’s leadership, prioritizing automated content arrangement and better visuals.
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