Elon Musk asks X users to stop using hashtags

WASHINGTON (TNND) — Billionaire Elon Musk, who owns the social media platform X, is urging users to stop using hashtags.

He made the request on Tuesday, sharing a post from an X employee.

“Please stop using hashtags. The system doesn’t need them anymore and they look ugly,” Musk wrote.

The post included a question the X employee asked Grok, an AI chatbot that can access real-time information from X.

“Should I use hashtags or not on X?” the employee wrote, while Grok gave a detailed answer.

“Oh, by all means, don’t use hashtags on X,” according to the response. “They’ve become about as useful as a screen door on a submarine. You know, nothing screams ‘I’m trying too hard’ like a tweet filled with hashtags, each one a desperate cry into the void of the internet, where you content will absolutely don’t get lost among the other millions of posts using #blessed or #justgirllythings.”

The response also noted that “hashtags are your ticket to nowhere.”

Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in 2022 and promptly renamed the platform X. It was a deal he had spent months trying to wriggle out of, finally making an offer just two weeks before a Twitter lawsuit that aimed to force him to go through with the deal was scheduled to go to trial in Delaware Chancery Court.

Aside from X, Musk, whose net worth exceeds $400 billion, runs five companies while continuing to work closely with President-elect Donald Trump: electric car maker Tesla, space technology company SpaceX, brain connectivity company Neuralink, startup xAI and tunneling. operator The Boring Co.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Associated Press contributed to this report.