Twitter gives subscribers 10,000 character limit

by Rebecca Klar - 04/14/23 11:37 AM ET

FILE - A sign at Twitter headquarters is shown in San Francisco, Dec. 8, 2022. Billionaire Elon Musk has told the BBC that running Twitter has been “quite painful” but that the social media company is now roughly breaking even after he acquired it late last year. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File) — FILE – A sign at Twitter headquarters is shown in San Francisco, Dec. 8, 2022. Billionaire Elon Musk has told the BBC that running Twitter has been “quite painful” but that the social media company is now roughly breaking even after he acquired it late last year. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

Twitter will let users who subscribe to its Twitter Blue service publish posts up to 10,000 characters long, the platform said Thursday.

The update will also let the paid users publish posts with bolded and italicized text.

It’s the latest change at Twitter under CEO Elon Musk, who bought the company for $44 billion in October, to character limits for Twitter Blue subscribers. In February, the limit was raised from the standard 280 characters to 4,000 for subscribers.

Twitter Blue costs $8 a month and offers other exclusive features for users. Musk has expanded the options under Twittter Blue since taking over the company. For example, users who pay are able to edit their tweets.

The news of the additional word count came after Twitter announced an apparent revamp of its former “Super Follows” monetized subscription tool for its subscribed members. The tool, called “Subscriptions” lets users make money off of content from users who choose to subscribe to their content, similar to the Super Follows feature.

Musk said for the next year Twitter will keep “none of the money” from the program and promised users “will receive whatever money we receive.”

The changes follow Twitter’s changes last week to restrict interactions with links to the newsletter platform Substack.

Substack, a platform popular with journalists, lets users post longform content and charge for subscriptions if they choose, seemingly similar to the features Musk is looking to expand on Twitter.