Elon Musk Announced Rebranding of Twitter To ‘X’
Elon Musk suddenly decided to rebrand Twitter’s iconic blue bird to “X” and removed the most recognizable social media brand. Twitter, since 2006, has been identifiable for its blue and white bird logo, which was a symbol of unique culture and lexicon. To “tweet” became a verb, a “tweet” was used to post.
Elon Musk purchased the platform for $44 billion last year and posted about the changes earlier this month.
“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,” Musk explained in a post.
“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.”
From one point of view, it looks like the potential killing of billions in brand value, but other marketing and branding experts consider this as the offbeat and seemingly reckless strategy that indicates the start of announced Musk’s “everything app.”
The step of rebranding is an “exceptionally risky move” that forces Musk to build a new brand from scratch. Twitter’s brand value decreased after Musk’s takeover but was far from insignificant and was still a multi-billion-dollar worth, experts say.
However, the change was unsurprising because Musk has been speaking out about his ambition to build an “everything app” like China’s WeChat and has already changed the business name to X Corp, but still, it was sudden. The new logo, a stylized white “X” on a black background, was atypically crowdsourced from his platform’s followers, which replaced profile images on Twitter’s official accounts and was projected onto the company’s headquarters. Twitter users noticed the mobile application change last weekend. X debuted the new logo on its desktop version last week, and a sign reflecting the company’s new name recently appeared at its San Francisco headquarters.
Musk stated that the decision to rebrand Twitter into “X” matches his wider vision of building an “everything app.” Similar to super apps, highly popular in parts of Asia, like virtual Swiss army knives that combine the functionality of multiple apps like ride-hailing, food delivery, payments, investing, and messaging. So Musk aims to plug the gap in the West.
For the moment, it’s not obvious what else Musk is actually expecting to change or what he will implement that will differentiate “X” from Twitter in more than just name and look.
X CEO Linda Yaccarino posting on the platform, said the app will 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,” she wrote.
Elon Musk has used the letter “x” in his company brands’ names before – SpaceX, the Tesla CEO’s rocket manufacturer, uses the letter in its logo. The billionaire also recently launched xAI, an artificial intelligence startup.