Last night was a long night for Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter and Tesla. At 12 AM ET he started tweeting about Twitter getting not only new groove but also a new name. It all began with bidding farewell to the distinguishable Twitter brand.
Over the next couple of hours, Musk kept tweeting about the upcoming change or responding to other posts and replies. At one point, he joined a Twitter Space session dubbed “No one talks until we summon Elon Musk”, only to sit there in silence for an entire hour before confirming the rebranding.
Twitter employees reportedly received an email from Musk informing them about the upcoming changes. According to a Threads post, this was to be the last email sent from a Twitter address.
What will the new logo look like?
Regarding the appearance of the new logo, Musk pinned a GIF originally posted by Sawyer Merritt. This is a Twitter user who offered the logo design, originally intended for his now-defunct podcast. Musk expressed his preference for the “minimalist art deco” style of the logo but acknowledged that he might make further refinements to it in the future.
Linda Yaccarino, the CEO of Twitter reshared the logo with the comment “X is here! Let’s do this!”
Expectedly, the Twitter community seems to be divided between those who praise anything that Musk does and those who are not quite delighted with the change. YouTuber Marques Brownlee who’s been using Twitter since 2009, stated he would keep calling it Twitter, only to receive a “Not for long” response from Musk personally.
As old habits die hard, the question is how much time will pass until the community replaces phrases such as tweets and tweeting with the new ones. And more importantly, what will the new ones look like – xes, xing?
The X obsession
For over two decades, the letter “X” has been a constant presence in Musk’s endeavors. It all began with X.com, the original name for PayPal, an online payment platform. The “X” can also be found in the name of his groundbreaking aerospace company, SpaceX, as well as in the title of the Tesla SUV. Additionally, it plays a pivotal role in anchoring x.AI, the latest venture into artificial intelligence. Not to forget, earlier this year, Twitter merged with a shell company dubbed X Corp.
The upcoming rebranding of the site will serve as the most explicit signal this social network has undergone a profound transformation since Musk acquired it last year. Yet, this isn’t the only change the network suffered in the Musk era.
Recently, Twitter limited the number of direct messages for non-paying users. A LinkedIn-like hiring feature emerged specifically for Verified Organizations, reflecting the platform’s evolving functionalities. Musk himself announced that the site would soon introduce a feature allowing users to post “very long, complex articles.” This feature appears to be called Articles, though it was previously known as Notes, reminiscent of Substack’s Twitter clone, which had a rather dramatic debut.
Needless to say, these changes do indicate a dynamic shift in the platform’s direction and offerings under Musk’s influence. The rebranding and various updates illustrate that Twitter is no longer the same as it once was. It’s still to be seen whether this risky move will help X.com rise to stars or explode as a supernova.
