Elon Musk has made one of the most visible changes to Twitter since he took control of the social media company last fall: replacing its widely recognized bird logo.
In a tweet early Sunday morning Eastern time, Mr. Musk said that “soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds.” About 24 hours later, a stylized, black-and-white X appeared on the company’s website in place of the blue bird logo.
Twitter’s corporate accounts also adopted the new branding, which was projected onto the side of the company’s headquarters in San Francisco overnight. “Lights. Camera. X!” Linda Yaccarino, Twitter’s chief executive, posted on the site, accompanying a photo of the building.
But Why….?
“X” is a term for what Mr. Musk has described as an “everything app” that could combine social media, instant messaging and payment services, akin to the popular Chinese app WeChat.
Mr. Musk has said that buying Twitter is “an accelerant to creating X,” and the corporate entity he created to purchase and control Twitter is called X Holdings.
Mr. Musk spoke on a Twitter audio livestream early Sunday to say he was changing Twitter’s logo. “It should have been done a long time ago,” he said. “Sorry it took so long.”
A few hours later, Mr. Musk said in an email to Twitter’s employees that “we are indeed changing to X.”
“This is my last message from a Twitter email,” he wrote, before signing off with a salute emoji.
Mr. Musk has had a long affinity for the letter X. In 1999, he co-founded X.com, an online bank, and later merged it with another start-up to create PayPal. In 2017, he said that he repurchased the X.com domain from PayPal.
Evolution Of Twitter Logo’s:-
How People React On This:-
• Musk began his rebranding of the app on Monday when the platform’s iconic blue bird was replaced by a large “X” sign. He also said that tweets will now be referred to as “x’s.”
• Comedy writer Jesse McLaren dissed the new logo in a tweet posting an image of various websites with the “X” logo and wrote: “These are all porn except one. That one’s Twitter.” The post has received 3.9 million views so far with comments largely sharing McLaren’s sentiments.
• Many adult sites contain the letter X in their names and logos, referencing the historical X-rated tag for adult movies.
• Musk posted an image of Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters projecting the letter “X” and one user responded: “Oh dear. I didn’t know about your rebrand idea and was looking for Twitter Verified, and scrolled right past your X logo, thinking it was a porn site. The bird is good, it’s loved and recognized worldwide. You just can’t buy that level of approbation.”
• A former Twitter employee, Parker Lyon, joked about how embarrassing the logo would look on his LinkedIn profile: “get this shit off my linkedin.”
• Users have even drawn comparisons with the logo of adult streaming site XVideos, which has been trending on Twitter since Sunday. The site even thanked Musk for this in a post.
• Musk has an affinity for the letter “X” and has previously shared his vision to create an “everything app” where users can tweet, shop, and use banking services amongst other features.
• Musk was a co-founder of a banking services site now known as PayPal, but he originally called it “X.” He was outvoted by other PayPal executives on the name because of its “pornographic associations.”
• But Twitter’s rebrand isn’t exactly going to plan. Police halted workers in the middle of removing the “Twitter” sign from its San Francisco headquarters, leaving behind only the letters “er” at present.