Elon Musk bans hashtags on X from..., what will be affected? Know when first hashtag was used

Elon Musk has made another big announcement and yet again it's about changing something about social media platform X. This time the tech billionaire said that he wants to get rid of hashtags on the platform he owns and so has banned hashtags on X (formerly Twitter) saying they will not be allowed in the advertisement space. Making the announcement official on X, he wrote, “Starting tomorrow, the esthetic nightmare that is hashtags will be banned from ads on X” The X owner called them ‘esthetic nightmare’ expressing his deep dislike of the age-old sign used to tag anything on social networking websites.  

 June 26, 2025

What is a Hashtag? 

A hashtag is a metadata tag operator expressed in the form of the hash symbol, #. It is used on social media platforms like X, Facebook, YouTube and more. Hashtags are a form of tagging that is generated by users on such sites. Through tagging, relevant content regarding a specific topic or theme can be accessed by clicking on tags.  

As an example, by putting a hashtag before a word, which is a reference for a topic/theme, like #goodweather, by clicking on this or by searching this, returns all posts that have been tagged with that term. After the hash symbol, a user can put anything like letters, numbers or punctuation. 

When were the first hashtags used on X (then Twitter)? 

Hashtags were first used on Twitter in August 2007 when user Chris Messina used the first hashtag, #barcamp, on August 23 and the idea of a hashtag came up. This feature instantly became trendy and gained a lot of traction and in 2008 it officially became part of the social media website. This made it easy for users to tag and group together related posts for quick search. Notably, a hashtag was first used on the Internet in 1988 on IRC (Internet Relay Chat) to label channels. 

Elon Musk opined last year that X does not need them anymore as they look ugly.  

 December 17, 2024

What will be affected? 

Ad targeting will be affected but not the regular posts as the latter can use hashtags and the ban is only partial. Answering a question Grok wrote, “Yes, hashtags are still useful for regular posts on X, despite the ad ban starting June 27, 2025. They boost visibility and engagement. Use 1-2 relevant hashtags per post to avoid looking spammy. Research trending, niche hashtags with tools like X's search. Place hashtags mid-tweet for better engagement or at the end for a cleaner look.