Musk reiterates plans to increase character limit on Twitter, says it's on his to-do list

Twitter is likely to answer the prayers of all the users who have persistently asked for an increase in the character limit for tweets. On Monday, CEO Elon Musk reiterated that the company could soon make the change, as it remains on his “to-do list.”

Musk hinted at the change when a user suggested that, "The character limit should be 1000, but only show the first 280 on timeline with a '… (show more)' to indicate tweet is longer. When tapped, expand entire tweet. When scrolled to end, it smoothly transitions back into timeline.” 

Responding to the idea, the Twitter boss wrote, “It’s on the todo list.” This isn’t the first time that Musk has publicly favoured increasing the character limit on the platform. Just a day before, he said it was a “good idea” when a user suggested increasing the limit to 420, a popular cannabis reference used by Musk, who once said that he is  "taking Tesla private” at a price of $420 per share.

Earlier in October, when one user asked, “Can we get rid of character limits, or at least greatly expand it? One of the actual better things about wechat than Twitter. Would be better for public discourse than short fuses, no?,” Musk briefly responded with an “Absolutely.”

When did Twitter make a change in character count? 

Prior to that, the billionaire said in April during talks of his acquisition deal with the platform, “Twitter is definitely overdue for long-form tweets!" It is important to note that Twitter, which is essentially known as a microblogging service due to its short-form tweets, went through a change in its character count in 2017. 

It was only five years ago when Twitter observed that “people needed to use more than 140 characters, they Tweeted more easily and more often,” hence the character count went from 140 to 280, as per the company’s official blog. However, the topic continues to divide users on Twitter, with some calling it necessary, while others state that it will erode Twitter's identity of being a brief and concise platform.