Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of Twitter, said he intends to replace the platform’s iconic blue bird symbol with an “X” as its new logo. This move would signify one of the most significant alterations since he acquired the social media giant for $44 billion in October last year.
In a series of posts on his Twitter account on Sunday, Musk announced his plan to implement the logo change globally, possibly as early as Monday.
“And soon we shall bid adieu to the Twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds,” he tweeted.
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Musk shared an image of a flickering “X” on Twitter and later, during a Twitter Spaces audio chat, responded with a simple “Yes” when questioned about the potential Twitter logo change. He further said that this modification should have been implemented much earlier.
https://t.co/bOUOek5Cvy now points to https://t.co/AYBszklpkE.
Interim X logo goes live later today.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 23, 2023
The move will see the end of Twitter’s 17-year-old blue bird logo but not what the social media platform stands for. The social media company’s CEO Linda Yaccarino said X will continue from where Twitter stopped in transforming the global town square.
“It’s an exceptionally rare thing – in life or in business – that you get a second chance to make another big impression. Twitter made one massive impression and changed the way we communicate. Now, X will go further, transforming the global town square,” she said.
It’s an exceptionally rare thing – in life or in business – that you get a second chance to make another big impression. Twitter made one massive impression and changed the way we communicate. Now, X will go further, transforming the global town square.
— Linda Yaccarino (@lindayaX) July 23, 2023
Musk has a vision of “Everything App” which is tied to X.com — a payment company he started and eventually merged with PayPal in 1999. He had last April, set up a trio of holding companies in Delaware with a variation of the name “X Holdings”, as part of his bid to acquire Twitter.
Having purchased Twitter for a hefty $44 billion, Musk acknowledged that the price he paid was indeed inflated. But he said in a tweet that buying the company was an “accelerant to creating X, the everything app.”
The “everything app” mirrors China’s WeChat app, which seamlessly integrates numerous features, including social media, payment systems, news, and messaging, into a single platform.
“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 added.
Musk is unveiling X amid intense competition with social media conglomerate, Meta, which earlier this month launched Threads – a text-based online platform that CEO Mark Zuckerberg has offered as an alternative to Twitter.
Musk’s Twitter takeover has been turbulent as advertisers had left the platform in droves due to the changes he effected, significantly draining the company’s revenue.
Switching to everything app is seen as an answer to all the problems, as it means using the numbers of the global square to sell the new X features – especially payment.
Twitter is said to have about 200 million daily users.