Changes to Twitter under the tech mogul's leadership have ended one of the country's most-loved institutions - a national Secret Santa run on the social media platform.

Started in 2010 by Hamilton man Sam Elton-Walters, the gift swap grew to include thousands of people who bought gifts for strangers on the internet.

The endearing tradition became so big it was taken over by NZ Post, with then prime minister Jacinda Ardern playing along in 2017 and unwrapping her gift - a decoration for her Christmas tree.

When NZ Post dropped the game in 2018, a group of Twitter users, led by user Foxy Lusty-Grover and a band of helper elves, picked it up.

This week, they announced the "very sad news" a 2023 Secret Santa exchange was unviable.

"Due to changes made to Twitter by Elon Musk we've had to make the very hard choice that we can not run #SecretSantaNZ anymore," the Secret Santa account tweeted.

"It's a heartbreaking decision because we thought we'd future-proofed ... but we will always have the memories."

The game was previously run with a spreadsheet and meticulous organisation by a back-end team that matched Twitter users and their addresses to other users to ensure everyone received their gift.

The team switched to an app that automates those processes but Musk is putting the data the Secret Santa team needs behind a paywall as he pushes to commercialise Twitter.

"There would be a cost factor now and also automated DMs and messages has had big changes," the Secret Santa account said.

A Secret Santa team member said they didn't want to introduce costs to play the game.

"We're a volunteer group. There's seven of us involved in running this ... we realised that was something that we could carry on," Jacky Braid told Radio NZ.

"We use an app to contact all of our people and it automates the messages that go out ... the charges that have come in now, they're going to be too much for us to manage."

Ms Braid said the group opted against petitioning Musk for a change of heart.

"I don't know if he's really wanting to engage in that sort of thing," she said.

"And we're not particularly interested in the way that he's turned Twitter into what it has become now.

"So many people are going to miss it ... We'd just be a tiny blip in the ocean as far as he's concerned."

Australian Associated Press