Elon Musk Plans To Remove Headlines From News Article Links On Twitter/X

Ted Johnson
·2 min read
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

Elon Musk says that he plans to make another move that will complicate news media outlets effort to draw traffic to their content on Twitter/X.

He confirmed a report in Fortune that the platform will strip out the headline from story links so that the links are only from the article’s lead image.

More from Deadline

“This is coming from me directly. Will greatly improve the esthetics,” Musk wrote on Twitter/X on Monday.

The plans were revealed on the same day as a lengthy piece on Musk in The New Yorker written by Ronan Farrow. The story delved into Musk’s influence over the war in Ukraine because he provides the Ukrainian military with the use of his Starlink internet service. But he has threatened to cut off access, while at the same time has had conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In one anecdote from last year involving a call with Colin Kahl, who was the under-secretary of defense for policy at the Pentagon. Farrow wrote, “Musk ‘said he was looking at his laptop and could see ‘the entire war unfolding’ through a map of Starlink activity.’ ‘This was, like, three minutes before he said, ‘Well, I had this great conversation with Putin,’ the senior defense official told me. ‘And we were, like, ‘Oh, dear, this is not good.’’ Musk told Kahl that the vivid illustration of how technology he had designed for peaceful ends was being used to wage war gave him pause.”

Last week, The Washington Post reported that Twitter/X had been slowing the speeds of links to The New York Times and Reuters, as well as Facebook and Substack. The outlets have been criticized by Musk and the other platforms are seen as his rivals. After the Post report, though, the delayed speeds were removed for some of the sites.

Best of Deadline

Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Click here to read the full article.