UPDATE, July 25, 2023 — Media outlets are reporting that Twitter could be potentially face legal challenges of the new brand X. Most notably, Meta and Microsoft each have trademark claims on X, says CNN. For example, Microsoft has owned the X trademark as it relates to Xbox since 2003. Also, Meta has a trademark from 2019 for a blue and white letter X.

Bye-bye, birdie. This weekend, billionaire Elon Musk and social media platform Twitter announced a rebrand, including a change from Twitter’s signature bluebird to an X. CEO Linda Yaccarino shared the rationale behind the new look and brand in a series of tweets.

She followed up by saying, “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.”

Yaccarino also said there is no limit to the company’s transformation.

“X will be the platform that can deliver, well…everything,” Yaccarino said.

Musk shared the new logo and updated his profile image. He also shared an image of the new X logo on its San Francisco headquarters last night.

Rebrands can take time to roll out, so while some of Twitter’s pages, feeds and features are already displaying the new logo, others may take time. Twitter’s About Us page, for example, shows the bluebird in the upper lefthand corner, but the tweet mock-up on the page displayed the X. However, X.com redirects users to Twitter.com.

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Why a rebrand?

A rebrand involves more than just a logo. A rebrand is often done when companies want to reposition or differentiate themselves in the marketplace and expand their appeal to new customers or users. Could Musk be looking for a clean slate, after eight months of chaos under his leadership? Or perhaps he wants to expand users’ thinking that Twitter is just a social media platform. Musk said he wants the platform to be an “everything app,” a place where users go to meet a variety of their digital needs.

The move comes just three weeks after the launch of Meta’s Threads, a Twitter alternative, which has gained popularity in short order, drawing more than 100 million users in the first five days. Perhaps Musk launched the rebrand to take the attention away from Threads and redirect it to his platform. Elon Musk may also be looking for a way to get the attention of advertisers. Last week, he tweeted that the company had negative cash flow and that ad revenue had dropped 50%. Though the company came with a $44 billion price tag, Twitter – X – is reportedly only worth about half that now.

Insider Take

Musk has always been a fan of the letter X and has often used it to name companies, brands, products (e.g., Tesla’s third electric car model), and even one of his children, reports NPR. Rebranding to the letter X takes his fondness for the letter to a whole new level. This is certainly an interesting turn of events, but it doesn’t seem like a simple rebrand can save Twitter or Musk from the damage that’s been done since he bought the company last fall. It merely makes Musk look like desperate and his new CEO like his loyal disciple. We could be wrong. The rebrand could be the best thing that’s ever happened to Twitter, but we doubt it. Until Musk changes his mind, X marks the spot.

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