Elon Musk bids adieu to the Twitter bird as social media giant rebrands to ‘X’
Twitter owner Elon Musk revealed the social media giant will bid farewell to its famous blue bird, as a new “X” logo was unveiled this week, in a bid to transform it into an “everything app”.
The billionaire Tesla boss announced the revamp, tweeting his desire to “bid adieu” to the Twitter brand and, gradually, “all the birds”.
Musk tweeted a photo of Twitter’s California headquarters lit up with the new X logo, while he changed his profile picture to the new X, against a black background.
He asked his more than 149m followers for input with the logo, promising to go live on Monday if a suitable design emerged.
He later updated Twitter that it would go live sooner than first announced.
Recently appointed Twitter boss Linda Yaccarino outlined the company’s ambitious vision for X, saying it will make a “big impression”.
She tweeted: “X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered [sic] 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.”
Twitter has already changed its name to X Corp in its filings, part of Musk’s vision to create an all-encompassing ‘everything app’ under the brand X, which will encompass messaging, payments and commerce altogether.
The move comes as Twitter is struggling to attract advertisers and grapples with intensified competition from rivals, such as Meta’s Threads platform.
Twitter has threatened to sue Meta over its Threads platform.
Since taking over the platform last year, Musk has cut jobs and costs while changing key elements of the app such as a reading limit for viewers.
The shifts have vexed users and advertisers alike, causing ad revenues to drop by half.
X rebrand slammed as ‘marketing suicide’
Richard Michie, chief exec and founder at The Marketing Optimist has described Musk’s dramatic rebrand of Twitter as “absolute marketing suicide”.
“Since he took over Twitter in what must be the most misguided takeover of the business in history, Elon Musk has been giving a masterclass in how to kill a brand with death by a thousand cuts,” Richie said, adding that Twitter is a “total basket case” which “adds zero value to advertisers”.
The decision to rebrand Twitter as X “comes across as a last-ditch effort to salvage the platform’s declining reputation,” said Tom Anderson, director at Hummingbird digital marketing agency.
Following a “notable exodus” of users,” it was clear Musk needed to act, Anderson said, adding the rebrand alone “may not be enough to address the underlying issues.”
Christine Charitonos, founder of London based culture agency What Does Not, asked: “Is this another episode of ‘billionaires lose their marbles'” or is Musk simply bored?
She suggested the X app is a move to rival Chinese superapp WeChat which is simultaneously a social media messaging platform and a mobile payment app.
However, some have questioned whether this will be successful in western markets. Tim Mills, managing partner at venture capital firm ACF Investors previously told Morning Wire users may just enjoy messaging on Whatsapp, paying with Monzo and don’t see the need to mash them together.
“Unless you’re able to capture most of the incumbent services people already use, the value of a superapp becomes heavily diluted,” Mills argued. “Think of a shopping mall which lacks your favourite stores.”
The same may be said for X.