Dating back to its conception, ‘X’ has held an unmistakable allure for tech mogul Elon Musk. Rooted deep within the annals of his illustrious career, the enigma of ‘X’ has now entered a new chapter, marking its triumphant return as the fresh official logo of Twitter, which was previously denoted by an iconic bird. This unprecedented modification, announced by Musk over the recent weekend, is already observable live on the platform.
Elon Musk made it clear through a tweet that the domain x.com now reroutes to twitter.com, calling this alteration an “interim” logo, thus insinuating future logo transformations may be forthcoming. More intriguingly, Musk implied that this shift may be just the initial step in an extensive rebranding operation, suggesting that the platform will “bid adieu to the Twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds.”
Musk, visibly embracing this change, updated his profile picture to the new Twitter logo late on Sunday. The official Twitter account, too, shifted its name and display picture to the newly minted ‘X’ logo. In a fascinating twist, Musk, in a response to a user’s query, intimated that tweets might soon be referred to as “X’s.”
Twitter’s CEO, Linda Yaccarino, outlined her vision for this shift, affirming that ‘X’ would revolutionize the way we communicate, aiming to introduce features concentrated around “audio, video, messaging, payment/banking,” thus evolving it into a “global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities.”
The allure of ‘X’ in Musk’s universe is a well-established fact. He established X.com in 1997, which ultimately gave birth to PayPal. The logo of his space venture, SpaceX, also prominently features an ‘X.’ His most recent undertaking, an AI company, is aptly titled X.ai. Twitter’s shift to X Corp as its legal name in April follows the same pattern, signalling Musk’s vision to metamorphose the social network into “X, the everything app.”
This isn’t Musk’s inaugural tryst with rebranding Twitter. Earlier this year, the platform’s logo momentarily morphed into the Doge meme, much to the amusement of netizens. A developer who crafted an extension to bypass the Doge logo asserted its compatibility with the new ‘X’ logo, providing an expedient way for users to revert to the original bird logo.
Twitter’s association with its bird logo is a relatively recent phenomenon, considering it didn’t possess its emblematic bird logo in its early days. It wasn’t until 2010 that “Larry the bird” became the official logo – named in honor of the legendary Boston Celtics basketball player Larry Bird.
This pivotal rebranding manoeuvre came on the heels of Musk’s acknowledgement of Twitter’s “negative cash flow” due to a “~50% drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load.” X Corp, the official legal entity name that Musk has been using since acquiring Twitter, might soon be the customer-facing brand for the erstwhile bird app.
Musk teased a short animation of an ‘X’ graphic on a black background on Sunday, indicating the imminent arrival of the ‘X’ logo, which he had promised to introduce as early as Sunday or Monday “worldwide.”
Twitter’s trademark blue bird logo and brand name might be reaching their expiration date, as per another of Musk’s posts. Even though Linda Yaccarino, Twitter’s ‘CEO’, hasn’t publicly responded to the change yet, the countdown has begun for this impending transformation.
Musk, it seems, continues to display a penchant for ‘X’, taking evident pleasure in branding his ventures with this letter, such as his new AI company ‘x.AI,’ harking back to his desire to use ‘X’ as the name for PayPal. At present, Twitter retains its name and the blue bird is still aloft, but the tides of change are stirring, subject to the whims of this mercurial billionaire.
