Twitter CEO Elon Musk still wants to take the micro out of microblogging, vowing to increase the platform’s character limit once again. This time it is proposed to increase the cutoff from 280 to 4000, more than 14 times of the existing cutoff.
This latest hint of Musk’s plans for Twitter came via his own account over the weekend. Asked by a Twitter user whether it was “true that Twitter is ready to grow from 280 to 4000 characters,” Musk replied with just three characters: “Yes.”
This is not the first time that the billionaire has said that Twitter will increase its character count. In November Musk responded to a similar inquiry by tweeting that expanding Twitter’s character limit was “on the todo [sic] list.” This was in reference to the 1000-character limit rather than the more recently proposed limit of 4000.
Regardless of the exact number, it looks like Twitter is likely to see a significant character count increase in the future. Mashable has reached out to Twitter for comment, as we enjoy dropping emails into the bottomless pit of Twitter’s abandoned press inbox.
There’s no indication of when Twitter’s character limit increase might happen, though it probably isn’t Musk’s top priority. Twitter has struggled publicly since the new CEO took over, hastily implementing new features and mass layoffs have caused widespread chaos.
Elon Musk reportedly threatened to sue Twitter employees who spoke to the press. Twitter previously increased its character count in 2017 under then-CEO Jack Dorsey, doubling it from 140 to 280. The original 140 character limit was based on the 160 character limit of SMS at the time.
Twitter delivers posts from accounts you follow in the form of text messages. This became increasingly irrelevant with the advent of smartphones, and in 2020 Twitter discontinued its SMS service in most countries. Although many were skeptical of Twitter’s increase to 280 characters at the time, users eventually became accustomed to the new norm.
Multiplying Twitter’s character limit by 14 is far from merely doubling it, and could fundamentally change the nature of Twitter as a microblogging platform. Although judging by his actions so far, it doesn’t seem like Musk is worried about preserving Twitter as we knew it at all.