The company formerly known as Twitter on Tuesday slowed the speed with which users could access links to the New York Times, Facebook and other news organizations and online competitors, a move that appeared targeted at companies that have drawn the ire of owner Elon Musk.

Users who clicked a link on Musk’s website, now called X, for one of the targeted websites were made to wait about five seconds before seeing the page...

The delayed websites included X’s online rivals Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky and Substack, as well as the Reuters wire service and the Times. All of them have previously been singled out by Musk for ridicule or attack.

On Tuesday afternoon, hours after this story was first published, X began reversing the throttling on some of the sites, dropping the delay times back to zero. It was unknown if all the throttled websites had normal service restored.

The delay affected the t.co domain, a link-shortening service that X uses to process every link posted to the website. Traffic is routed through the domain, allowing X to track — and, in this case, throttle — activity to the target website, potentially taking away traffic and ad revenue from businesses Musk personally dislikes.

The analysis found that links to most other sites were unaffected — including those to The Washington Post, Fox News and social media services such as Mastodon and YouTube — with the shortened links being routed to their final destination in a second or less. A user first flagged the delays early Tuesday on the technology discussion forum Hacker News.

Musk, a self-described “free speech absolutist,” did not respond to requests for comment. X also did not respond.

Online companies pour millions of dollars into ensuring their websites open as quickly as possible, knowing that even tiny delays can lead their traffic to plunge as users grow impatient with the delay and go elsewhere. A Google study of mobile traffic in 2016 found that 53 percent of users abandoned a website if it took longer than three seconds to load. A person familiar with the Times’s operations said the news organization had seen a drop in traffic from X since the delays began.

The delays also affected X’s biggest rivals in social media. Links to Facebook, Instagram and the new microblogging service Threads were all throttled; all three are owned by Meta, whose founder and chief Mark Zuckerberg has been locked in an ongoing online feud with Musk over not-yet-existent plans for a mixed-martial-arts fight.

X also throttled traffic to Bluesky, the platform started with help from former Twitter chief Jack Dorsey, who has used it to criticize Musk’s leadership. The same throttling also applied to Substack, the email newsletter platform that runs its own short-text service, Substack Notes.

X also throttled traffic to Bluesky, the platform started with help from former Twitter chief Jack Dorsey, who has used it to criticize Musk’s leadership. The same throttling also applied to Substack, the email newsletter platform that runs its own short-text service, Substack Notes.