what is it called now?
Elon Musk announced in a series of tweets his intentions to do away with the app’s iconic bird-related imagery. Instead, the social media network formerly known as Twitter will be rebranded simply to X. The spot once reserved for the blue and white bird logo has been replaced with a gray-scale letter X. The company’s official handle remains @twitter. But the display username has been changed to a capital X. And the profile photo to a black square featuring a white-lined X in the middle. Musk’s account also shares the same profile image. And two recent posts about the logo: one calling it “Futuristic Art Deco”. While another features a sort of hype reel for the new design.
Typing X.com into the search bar automatically redirects to Twitter, though Twitter.com also still leads to the same landing page.
Musk had appealed to his 149 million followers for design ideas and appears to have chosen a new logo. He had flagged new logo on Sunday via a flickering video pinned to the top of his Twitter feed. The “X” has long been an obsession of Musk. Shortly before buying the app, Musk described the social media platform as “an accelerant to creating X, the everything app”. After taking over, Musk folded the company into an entity called X Corp, whose parent is X Holdings Corp. This month, the Tesla CEO announced that he was forming a new artificial intelligence company called xAI.
Why??
Both Musk and his team have offered a series of explanations for the rebranding.
Musk said the “X” design served to “embody the imperfections in us all that make us unique. While in another he pointed out his personal affinity for the letter. Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino, also said the overhaul allows for a chance to make a fresh “big impression”. And that the new brand will “go further” than Twitter to “transform the global town square.”
“X is the future state of unlimited interactivity. Centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities. Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine.”
In a Monday tweet, Musk provided further insight into his thoughts behind the change. He said Twitter is on its way to becoming an “everything app” for use not only in communication but also in financial transactions. According to him, the existing name and branding do not reflect these ambitions.
“Twitter was acquired by X Corp both to ensure freedom of speech and as an accelerant for X, the everything app. This is not simply a company renaming itself, but doing the same thing,” he tweeted.
“The Twitter name made sense when it was just 140 character messages going back and forth – like birds tweeting – but now you can post almost anything, including several hours of video. In the months to come, we will add comprehensive communications and the ability to conduct your entire financial world. The Twitter name does not make sense in that context, so we must bid adieu to the bird.”
Finally posted. But when and by whom?
The crowdsourced logo had been posted by Twitter user Sawyer Merritt, the co-founder of a sustainable clothing business. He tweeted that the font had been used for a discontinued podcast. The logo is taken from Unicode. This is an international industrial standard for encoding text characters so that they can be displayed online. The Twitter logo is based on a Unicode font called Blackboard bold. This leaves open questions about whether the logo can be copyrighted or protected as a trademark.
The X concept is modelled on WeChat, the Chinese platform. That allows users to perform multiple functions, from messaging to ordering a taxi and paying bills. In June last year, Musk reportedly told Twitter staff: “You basically live on WeChat in China. If we can recreate that with Twitter, we’ll be a great success.” Yaccarino gave some details on Sunday of how she expected X to work. She tweeted that the business would be AI-powered and “centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking”. As of Monday morning, the desktop version of Twitter was displaying the new logo in place of its signature bird symbol. And the official Twitter account had been changed to the X brand.
Twitter Killer
The rebrand has already begun at Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, where the company has projected the X logo on and within the building and reportedly renamed conference rooms to words that include X. One analyst warned that the rebranding move was high-risk given the competitive outlook for Twitter, which is suffering financially from advertisers withholding spending and the emergence of a “Twitter killer” rival called Threads, launched by Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta. “By changing Twitter’s app name, Elon Musk will have singlehandedly wiped out over 15 years of a brand name that has secured its place in our cultural lexicon,” said Mike Proulx, research director at the analysis firm Forrester. “This is an extremely risky move, because with ‘X’, Musk is essentially starting over while its competition is afoot.”
After announcing his plans to rebrand in a series of tweets over the weekend, saying in one: “And soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds,” Musk posted a photo of a giant “X” projected on Twitter’s headquarters on Monday.
In another step toward reimagining the company’s image, removal of the original “Twitter” signage on the San Francisco office building began on Monday but was stopped halfway through after local police interfered due to permit issues, NBC reported. Though the blue bird remains temporarily hung outside the office and the mobile version of the app still heavily features the old branding, it looks like Twitter’s future as simply “X” is imminent. What exactly that means is still up in the air: are they still called “tweets?” Will users have to access a new web domain? Is something besides the logo changing? Here’s what we know so far about Twitter’s transition to X.
How much did Elon Musk paid for it??
Musk purchased Twitter in October of 2022 for $44 billion. He initially agreed to the deal in April of last year before attempting to back out, claiming Twitter had misrepresented numbers thanks to spam and bots. Twitter responded not only by denying the claims but by suing Musk for completion of the purchase, though the two eventually settled the dispute out of court.
According to prior reporting by USA TODAY, Musk said he overpaid for Twitter and the platform was valued at a mere $25 billion by Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives. Musk said he continued with the deal partially because he considered the app one of “great potential” whose revenue he believed he could double in three years.
Even this early in the acquisition, Musk alluded to the development of “X,” the “everything app” and his intentions to utilize Twitter as a piece of that puzzle. Even with these strong ambitions, however, Musk also took on Twitter’s estimated $13 billion in debt at the time of purchase.
Did meta already trademark to X?
While Musk has already fully committed to the brand transformation, some reports have raised legal questions surrounding the use of the logo and name X, as a number of other companies have already trademarked the letter for their own use.
Perhaps most notably, Meta holds a trademark for an “X” logo for “online social networking services” and “social networking services in the fields of entertainment, gaming, and application development.” Microsoft also has an “X” registered for use in similar software and social media spaces, though both companies hold only a few of the many trademarks filed around the letter. While it is not uncommon for many people and companies to have trademarks on similar words, phrases, images, or even letters, the existing rivalry between the brands, especially Meta and Twitter, has led some to speculate a legal battle could ensue.
What else changed with the logo?
The transition to “X” is the largest change Musk has announced since earlier this month when he put “temporary limits” on the number of tweets users can read based on their subscription level.
Initially, Musk said verified accounts would be limited to reading 6,000 posts daily and unverified accounts would be limited to only 600. A few hours later, he amended this statement by tweeting that rate limits would increase to 8,000 tweets a day for verified accounts, 800 for unverified and 400 for new accounts. An hour after that, he changed it to a limit of 10,000 a day for verified accounts, 1,000 for unverified and 500 for new accounts.
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