In an unexpected twist, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk unveiled the long-anticipated website X.com this past Sunday. To the surprise of many, it simply redirects to Twitter, and he’s announced plans to replace Twitter’s iconic blue bird with the letter “X”. This is just another intriguing step in what Musk describes as a grand rebranding mission towards an “everything app.”
On Sunday, Musk revealed via Twitter that the temporary “X” logo would replace the bluebird imminently. The rationale behind the rebranding? Well, Musk has a well-documented affinity for the letter “X,” visible across his diverse business ventures. For instance, he purchased X.com from PayPal in 2017, a move that he cited as having “great sentimental value”.
The history of “X” in Musk’s business ventures is fascinating. He co-founded an online banking company called X.com (which later merged with Confinity and rebranded to PayPal), named a model of Tesla the “X,” and of course, leads the pioneering space technology company SpaceX. It appears the letter “X” will be seeing even more action as it will replace the term “tweets” on the platform.
Musk further hinted at his fondness for the letter with a cryptic video of “X” and a picture of himself forming an “X” with his arms. His caption humorously suggested the platform “shall bid adieu to the Twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds.”
The radical rebranding follows Twitter’s transition to operating under the name X Corp, a change communicated to its corporate partners three months ago. According to a California court filing in early April, Twitter Inc. “no longer exists”.
Since acquiring Twitter in a massive $44 billion deal last year, Musk has hinted at this rebranding while leading a plethora of changes. The objective? To create a veritable marketplace of ideas. This has seen a relaxation of Twitter’s moderation policies and the reinstatement of formerly banned accounts.
However, these changes did cause alarm among advertisers, leading to a significant exodus from the platform last autumn. Musk has since been working on strategies to recuperate the lost revenue, introducing an $8 per month Twitter Blue feature and offering payment to verified users for ads in their replies.
Alongside the tumultuous transition, Musk oversaw a sale of Twitter merchandise, including a four-foot bust of Twitter’s bird logo which fetched a cool $100,000 at auction in January.
On a related note, Musk recently founded an artificial intelligence company in Nevada called X.AI Corp. Billed as an alternative to the growing AI firm OpenAI, which Musk helped found in 2015, X.AI Corp aims “to understand reality.”
The grand rebranding and ambitious ventures underlie Musk’s drive to innovate, even as his net worth fluctuates with Tesla’s stock price. His vision for Twitter, or should we say X.com, promises a seismic shift in the social media landscape and underlines the importance of remaining adaptable in today’s fast-paced tech industry.