Technology: Elon Musk’s “X” factor ejects Twitter’s iconic Blue Bird
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Elon Musk has done it again what he often does: surprise us.
In a brand overhaul, he has rebranded the social media platform Twitter to a simple “X”, the new logo of the microblogging major, replacing the distinctive blue bird logo.
He announced on Monday that Twitter’s logo will change to “X” from its iconic blue bird symbol, marking the latest big change since the world’s richest man bought the struggling social media platform for USD 44 billion in October 2022.
Twitter’s CEO Linda Yaccino confirmed the platform will now be called “X”, an AI-powered platform centered around audio, video, messaging, payments, and banking.
“It’s an exceptionally rare thing — in life or in business — that you get a second chance to make another big impression,” she tweeted. “Twitter made one massive impression and changed the way we communicate. Now, X will go further, transforming the global town square.”
“X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine.”
On Sunday, Musk posted a short video of a flickering “X,” and later in a Twitter Spaces audio chat, he replied “Yes” when asked whether the logo will change.
“Yeah, we’re cutting the Twitter logo off the building with blow torches,” he said.
Twitter has pushed many users to get premium blue subscriptions recently by locking the most used features behind the paywall. With this fresh branding overhaul, it could further tweak the platform to promote more users to get onto the subscription bandwagon, the media reported.
For now, the URL x.com redirects to twitter.com. The change in the branding of the world’s biggest microblogging platform will soon be officially confirmed.
This is not the first time Musk is playing around with the Twitter branding. In April 2023, Twitter’s blue bird logo was briefly replaced by the logo of Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency.
CEO Yaccarino said, with brand ‘X’, Twitter will foray into payments and banking apart from its usual audio and video sharing, and messaging. Her tweet also suggested that a lot of it will be powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI).
“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 tweeted.
“There’s absolutely no limit to this transformation. X will be the platform that can deliver, well…everything. Elon Musk and I are looking forward to working with our teams and every single one of our partners to bring X to the world,” she said.
His takeover of Twitter in 2022 was “an accelerant to creating X,” a reference to the X.com company he founded in 1999 and which later evolved into PayPal. He bought the domain X.com in 2017. Now the company has changed the business name to X Corps, in line with his vision to create a ‘super app’ like China’s WeChat.
The X Group of Companies — or X Corp — initially had SpaceX and Neuralink under its ambit. Later, Tesla also joined. In April, Musk announced that Twitter was no longer an independent company but a part of the X Corp.
