Elon Musk Rebrands Twitter as X

The new logo has been deployed, but it's not clear what changes will come next or when they will go into effect.

By Michael Hein

On Sunday, Twitter began a rebrand that will change its name to "X," apparently under the direction of the site's owner Elon Musk. At the time of this writing, the Twitter bird logo has been replaced with a stylized letter X in most places, and the website X.com now points to Twitter as well. Most commenters seemed to doubt that this change would reverse the website's fortunes, and couldn't imagine why else Musk was doing this.

Typing in "twitter.com" on any browser will still bring you to the same website, though it will show the "X" logo in all the relevant places. So far, there have been no other major changes to the interface to accompany this rebrand, but Musk and his executives claim that this is only the beginning. On Sunday, Musk tweeted: "Soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds." Later, he retweeted Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino, who wrote a thread about what will distinguish X from Twitter.

"Twitter made one massive impression and changed the way we communicate. Now, X will go further, transforming the global town square," she wrote. "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."

Still, critics couldn't help but speculate about the financial motivations behind a change like this. A report by CNN Business wondered if this rebrand is a "Hail Mary" attempt to generate interest from investors and advertisers, potentially making the website profitable again. Musk himself has complained that Twitter has been losing money constantly since he acquired it last year.

Twitter was founded in 2006 and has stuck to its bird motif ever since, even as it went through other drastic changes over the years. Musk was an active user, and like many others, frequently posted complaints about the platform itself and how it was managed. In April of 2022, he made an unsolicited offer to purchase the company for $43 billion so that he could run it the way he wanted. Musk tried to back out of this deal, but it was too late.

Since then, Musk has made many controversial changes to the website itself and to the company, including mass layoffs. These kinds of changes have frightened off some advertisers at times, which may be the biggest factor in the website's financial problems. It's unclear where this X rebrand is headed, and what it will mean for the company. In the meantime, more and more competing websites have cropped up.

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