Twitter is now X! Elon Musk has made one of the most noticeable changes to Twitter since he took control of the social media platform in the fall: he has replaced the company’s widely recognized bird logo.
Mr. Musk tweeted early on Sunday morning Eastern time that “soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds.” About 24 hours later, a stylized black-and-white X replaced the blue avian logo on the company’s website.
Additionally, Twitter’s corporate accounts adopted the new branding, which was overnight projected onto the exterior of the company’s San Francisco headquarters. “Lights. Camera. X!” With a photo of the building, Twitter’s chief executive officer, Linda Yaccarino, posted on the website.
Musk has described “X” as a “everything app” that could integrate social media, instant messaging, and payment services, similar to the Chinese app WeChat.
Mr. Musk has stated that acquiring Twitter is “an accelerant to creating X,” and the corporate entity he established to acquire and control Twitter is X Holdings.
Mr. Musk announced Sunday morning via a Twitter audio livestream that he was changing Twitter’s logo. “It should have been done a long time ago,” he stated. “Sorry it took so long.”
A few hours later, Mr. Musk informed Twitter employees via email that “we are indeed changing to X.”
“This is my last message from a Twitter email,” he wrote, concluding with a salute emoji.
After acquiring the company and converting it to a private entity, Mr. Musk faces few obstacles when implementing such changes. However, he may still face opposition from the banks that have loaned him billions of dollars and the private investors he recruited for the transaction, who may have reservations about the disposal of one of Twitter’s most visible assets.
Due to the departure of sales executives and concerns that the website had become more prone to problematic content, the company’s ad revenue plummeted. It now confronts a well-funded competitor in Threads, a Twitter-like service recently introduced by Facebook owner Meta.
Mr. Musk has a longstanding fondness for the letter X. In 1999, he co-founded the online bank X.com, which was later merged with another startup to form PayPal. He claimed that he repurchased the X.com domain from PayPal in 2017.
Mr. Musk has not always followed through on his public declarations, such as when he tweeted that the company would establish a content moderation council to determine what types of discourse are acceptable on the site.
However, he has persisted in modifying certain Twitter practices, such as charging prominent users a subscription charge for the white-and-blue check mark that previously denoted free account verification.
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