By Shubhangi Chowdhury
With digital marketing dominating the game, tech billionaire Elon Musk has sparked both applause and concern with his latest move. He has announced that hashtags will no longer be permitted in ads on X (formerly Twitter), raising big questions about how this will shape the future of online advertising.
Calling them an “esthetic nightmare,” Musk’s X post stated “Starting tomorrow, the esthetic nightmare that is hashtags will be banned from ads on X.” Shortly after the post went live, it quickly caught people’s attention — especially regular users. Some responded with memes, poking fun at the situation, while others welcomed the announcement, saying they were fed up with all the unnecessary ads.
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One of the users commented, “Cleaner, sharper, more premium vibes incoming.” Another agreed, “This is the right move.” Another user mentioned that “Hashtags don’t work—I don’t know why so many people still use them.”
Even in 2024, Musk has been pretty vocal about asking users to ditch hashtags altogether. He claims that with the platform’s AI-driven recommendation engine, Grok, hashtags just aren’t needed anymore. Grok can group content on its own—no hashtags required. Basically, what hashtags used to do, Grok can now handle behind the scenes.
This claim emerged due to the heavy reliance on AI. Musk has incorporated AI to make X a clutter free platform. According to him, hashtags make the platform a mess. He argues, “The system doesn’t need them anymore and they look ugly.”
While this change might make it harder for advertisers to precisely target users, it won’t impact how people use hashtags in their everyday posts. Regular tweets can still include hashtags, and there’s no blanket ban on them across the platform. In fact, hashtags continue to play a powerful role in how people interact on social media.
READ: Musk merges X and xAI in $33 billion deal(March 31, 2025)
Since their debut on Twitter in 2007, hashtags have become a go-to tool for organizing conversations—from sparking global movements like #BlackLivesMatter to fueling viral trends like #ThrowbackThursday or #OOTD.
Hashtags have been the digital glue that connects people to conversations that matter to them. Brands use hashtags to create buzz around product launches with hashtags such as #YouCantStopUs or #ShotoniPhone. Meanwhile, creators and influencers rely on them to grow their audience and join broader discussions. So even though advertisers might feel a pinch, the way everyday users engage, discover, and express themselves through hashtags stays intact for now.
However, as the platform moves further toward AI-driven, traditional methods like hashtags may gradually take a back seat. This shift could eventually lead Musk to phase them out entirely, pushing the platform even more toward an AI-first experience in due course.