Volkswagen has joined other companies looking to freeze advertising on Twitter following its takeover by tech billionaire Elon Musk. As a reason, the Wolfsburg called the announcement of the short message service on Friday to revise guidelines for the placement of such content. The VW Group has now "recommended its brands to pause their paid activities on the platform until further notice," it said. This is not a definitive stop to advertising: "We are monitoring the situation closely and will decide on the next steps depending on how things develop."

The months of back-and-forth about Musk's entry plans at Twitter and his ideas about direction and dealing with employees had caused a stir. Musk promised, for example, to take action against fake accounts and spam. On the other hand, he himself recently circulated a link to a conspiracy theory about the attack on the US House Speaker's husband, Nancy Pelosi.

There is also user resistance to its plans to offer verified accounts as part of a paid subscription. Musk wrote: "To all the whiners, please keep complaining, but it's $8." In addition, subscribers should only see half of the usual advertisements.