The famous blue bird – the iconic logo of Twitter for over a decade – has now been transformed into a stylised X which becomes the logo of the world-wide micro-blogging platform. It was a triumph of the platform that its logo has produced a new verb in the English lexicon – Tweet. Soon the word will also become obsolete and ‘tweets’ will probably be called ‘x-s’. This big step taken by new owner Elon Musk has puzzled branding professionals since transforming a globally accepted logo and rebranding it is a tall order. Although Musk, it seems, is always up for challenges, however illogical they may seem at that moment. In the recent past, Musk’s new-found nemesis Mark Zukerberg successfully rebranded Facebook to Meta. Maybe, Musk found a success story here to announce his rebranding plan of Twitter.
The new white X on a black background has replaced the recognisable blue bird on the desktop version of the social network, though it has yet to appear on the mobile app. ‘Tweets’ will also be replaced, according to Musk, and posts will be called ‘x’s’. Before the idea could sink in among the platform’s users, the billionaire changed his profile picture to the new logo and added “X.com” to his Twitter bio. Announcing the demise of the bird he said July 23, “And soon we shall bid adieu to the Twitter brand and gradually all the birds.” He then shared a picture of the new X branding projected onto the side of Twitter headquarters in San Francisco.
Musk’s fixation with the letter ‘X’ is not unknown. He has named many of his business ventures after this letter of the alphabet. One of his first business ventures in 1999 was known as X.com, which was an online banking platform. Three years later, he made $165 million when X.com – by then merged with PayPal – was bought by eBay. He also owns the X.com domain name, which now redirects to Twitter. He is chief executive of SpaceX, the commercial American aerospace company founded in 2002. Recently, he also launched his long-awaited artificial intelligence start-up – xAI – in a bid to build an alternative to ChatGPT. His first child with musician Grimes is named X Æ A-12 Musk.
Musk could also be strategising to tie most of his companies together under the letter X branding in some way. It could be a step towards integrating Twitter with bigger social media platforms and services. One of China’s largest social media platforms WeChat can be taken as an example. It has evolved into one of the region’s biggest apps in terms of its range of services and number of users. Last year, it was estimated to have 1.29 billion users in China alone.
Whatever may be the case, Musk has certainly got everyone’s attention by giving a shock in the form of a change of the famous logo. The change of Twitter’s logo has got the attention that Musk must have been desperately seeking. It is said that he is planning to build a more service oriented app that would be used for many more tasks rather than just messaging. He could probably also be wishing to totally rebrand Twitter and remove all traces of the old guard before his takeover, which was sketchy to say the least. From firing of a huge chunk of its employees immediately after takeover and changing the guidelines and verification process of Twitter to charging for the blue tick, Musk is hell bent on rewriting the Twitter brand in all its essence and owning it Musk style. A sensational burial to the old, too familiar logo and the introduction of a shiny new one seem like a logical step in that direction.
All that avid Twitter users would have hoped for is that Musk would hold on to the basic structure and style of the original micro-blogging site. Alas, that is no more visible. Original Twitter would soon, probably, be dead.