Elon Musk’s owned social site, Twitter, now known as X, has been delaying users from accessing content from The New York Times, Reuters and rival platforms, including Facebook, BlueSky and Substack, which are organisations previously humiliated by Mr Musk.

The delay stirred concerns that Mr Musk was using his company to fight personal vendetta and stifle press freedom, a move that highlights the influence of the tech giant on information dissemination.

Tests conducted by Washington Post showed that X users had to wait at least 4.5 seconds to access news links from The Times and Reuters, which could discourage news readers from finding another link to click.

The Times already affirmed that there had been a slight drop in readers, according to a staff who spoke under anonymity to The Post.

The delay, known in tech parlance as throttle, was first noticed by a Hacker News user on August 4, the same day Mr Musk upbraided The Times and accused the news organisation of “openly pushing for genocide of white people in South Africa” over a published article ‘Kill The Boer‘.

But shortly after The Post drew the world’s attention to the delay on Tuesday, the slowness lifted and users could again speedily access the previously mentioned sites.

Reacting to the incident, Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesman for the Times, disclosed that the organisation had “made similar observations” without “any explanation” from X.

“While we don’t know the rationale behind the application of this time delay, we would be concerned by targeted pressure applied to any news organization for unclear reasons,” The Post quoted Mr Stadtlander as saying.

X is yet to comment on the incident.