Say, “Bye, bye birdie.”
Twitter boss Elon Musk appears to be getting rid of Twitter's longtime logo — the blue silhouette of a bird — in favor of an X.
Musk sent out a series of tweets Sunday, first hinting at the change. He posted, “If a good enough X logo is posted tonight, we’ll make (it) go live worldwide tomorrow.”
About that time, if you went online and typed in “X.com,” it took you to Twitter. Musk made that announcement Sunday afternoon, adding, “Interim X logo goes live later today.”
Earlier this year, in court filings, Twitter Inc. officially changed its name to X Corp.
As The Wall Street Journal’s Collin Eaton pointed out, “Musk, whose rocket company Space Exploration Technologies is called SpaceX, has a long history with the letter. His former online banking startup, X.com, later became PayPal after a merger with another firm. Musk often refers to one of his children as X.”
Musk also posted what appeared to be an old photo of himself making an X with his arms, tweeting, “Not sure what subtle clues gave it way, but I like the letter X.”
This doesn’t appear to be a short-term publicity stunt. It sounds permanent. Musk also reportedly sent an email to Twitter employees, writing, “… we are indeed changing to X. … This is my last message from a Twitter email.”
On a Twitter audio stream Sunday, Musk said, “It should have been done a long time ago. Sorry it took so long.”
Then, Sunday afternoon, Linda Yaccarino, who became Twitter’s CEO last month, tweeted, “It’s an exceptionally rare thing — in life or in business — that you get a second chance to make another big impression. Twitter made one massive impression and changed the way we communicate. Now, X will go further, transforming the global town square.”
She continued by writing, “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. For years, fans and critics alike have pushed Twitter to dream bigger, to innovate faster, and to fulfill our great potential. X will do that and more. We’ve already started to see X take shape over the past 8 months through our rapid feature launches, but we’re just getting started.”
She concluded with, “There’s absolutely no limit to this transformation. X will be the platform that can deliver, well….everything. @elonmusk and I are looking forward to working with our teams and every single one of our partners to bring X to the world.”
Yaccarino’s tweets were roasted by many on Twitter, some comparing it to something that the character Kendall Roy might have said on the HBO show “Succession.”
Dan Wolken, a sports columnist for USA Today, had a response, tweeting, “Nobody wanted to go further, Linda. We just wanted to read and send tweets. You guys don’t seem to get this.”
I’m not sure I see the business strategy of replacing a known brand — one that has been successful for a long time. Besides the name “Twitter,” the little blue bird has become synonymous with Twitter. It was designed in 2006 and has been tweaked at least three times since then, but it has always been instantly recognizable.
Leave it to podcaster and tech reporter Kara Swisher to sum it all up. She tweeted, “Rebranding HBO to Max was the dumbest rebrand in recent history. Elon: Hold my beer and/or whatever is being partaken at 3 am.”
