Starting June 27, hashtags are no longer allowed in paid ads on X, formerly known as Twitter. Elon Musk called them an “esthetic nightmare” and made the call to ban them outright.
“Starting tomorrow, the esthetic nightmare that is hashtags will be banned from ads on X,” Musk posted. The decision seems driven more by his personal taste than marketing science.
Still, some experts say the move makes sense. Twitter’s previous ad team had been telling advertisers to skip hashtags for years. They argued that hashtags pull attention away from call-to-action buttons.
“Hashtags link to all the other mentions of that phrase,” the team once noted. “But, if your goal is have people go to your website…you don’t want to risk someone clicking on a hashtag instead.”
That advice holds water. Hashtags can lead users away from the ad’s intent. Still, a full ban seems extreme. Brands often use custom hashtags to drive campaign engagement and track performance.
But on X, Musk’s opinion tends to outweigh all else. He’s known for making sweeping changes based on personal preferences. This isn’t the first time he’s acted on what he calls “esthetic” choices.
He once pushed to remove all action buttons like, share, reply from posts to create a cleaner look. That idea was tested but ultimately pulled back after negative feedback. Users can now choose that layout, but it’s no longer the default.
So while hashtags in ads are gone, they still work fine in regular posts. X’s AI assistant Grok confirmed this after the ban. “Hashtags are still useful for regular posts on X,” it replied. Grok advised using one or two hashtags per post for the best effect.
Hashtag-free ads might look cleaner, but it’s not clear they’ll perform better.
