WordPress has just become the latest major platform or organization to cut its Twitter integrations due to Elon Musk’s brand new high-priced API subscription plans.
Under Musk, Twitter has shut down its free API offerings to developers looking to build Twitter-based apps or integrations. In its place, the company announced exorbitantly-priced paid Enterprise subscriptiers, which start at $42,000 per month, earlier this year.
According to a statement released by WordPress, the platform is removing Twitter from JetPack, an official plugin run by WordPress and its parent company, Automattic. Among its many security and marketing offerings, JetPack Social provides users with the ability to automatically share content directly to an array of social media platforms from their WordPress sites.
WordPress is clear in its statement, titled “The End of Twitter Auto-Sharing(opens in a new tab),” that Twitter’s removal from JetPack is due to the API price hike.
“Twitter decided, on short notice, to dramatically change the terms and pricing of the Twitter API,” said Automattic in a statement. “We have attempted to work with Twitter in good faith to negotiate new terms, but we have not been able to reach an agreement. As a result, the Twitter connection on Jetpack Social will cease to work, and your blog posts will no longer be auto-shared to Twitter.”
The company is clear that this will only affect Twitter. Automattic states that WordPress users will still be able to utilize JetPack’s social features as they did before with platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Tumblr. In addition, the company stated that its planning on adding Instagram and decentralized Twitter competitor Mastodon to JetPack Social in the “near future.”
In removing Twitter, WordPress joins the ranks of other major companies to drop Twitter in recent weeks. Microsoft, recently removed Twitter from its Microsoft Ads service and Xbox gaming console and Intercom, a popular customer service platform, dropped the Musk-owned platform from its tools as well.