Musk says Twitter character limit will increase to 4,000

Twitter CEO Elon Musk on Sunday suggested the platform will dramatically increase character limits on tweets from 280 to 4,000.

“Elon is it true that Twitter is set to increase the characters from 280 to 4000?” one user tweeted at the social media platform’s new owner.

“Yes,” Musk responded.

Such a change would shift Twitter away from its microblogging format that led to the platform’s rise, allowing users to write tweets more than 14 times longer than the current limit.

Currently, users wishing to write posts longer than the limit of 280 characters must create a thread and write their comments across multiple consecutive tweets.

Yes

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 11, 2022

Musk late last month signaled the company was working on increasing the character limit, indicating that expanding it to 1,000 characters was “on the todo list.”

The platform previously maintained a 140-character limit on tweets before doubling it to 280 characters in November 2017, citing users who were “cramming” text into a singular tweet.

But the limit still remains below most other major social media platforms, contrasting Twitter’s microblogging setup with platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

The change would mark one of multiple major modifications Musk has made to Twitter’s platform since taking over the company in late October.

Twitter is relaunching its new paid verification service on Monday after a previous launch led to widespread impersonations of prominent brands.

The company now says users who pay the monthly fee must go through a review process before receiving a blue verification check, and Twitter will also charge a higher price for users purchasing the subscription service on Apple devices.

Musk has also garnered criticisms for his changes to Twitter’s content moderation strategy in pursuit of his vision for a “free speech” platform.

Tech and media industry experts indicate the moves are Musk’s latest attempt to woo right-wing users back to Twitter after the company faced attacks from conservatives prior to Musk’s takeover.

Updated at 8:40 a.m.