For over a decade, Twitter has become one of the most recognizable social media brands with its bird decals adorning small businesses and websites globally, alongside Instagram and Facebook logos. Twitter has been famous for its blue and white bird logo, symbolizing the distinctive culture of this social network. We have immersed ourselves so much in it that verbs like “tweet” and “retweet” became a part of our modern culture.
It would not last forever as Elon Musk, the tech billionaire who bought Twitter last year, rebranding the social platform as X.com on its website and started replacing the legendary bird logo with a stylized version of the letter X. This transformation extended to Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco, where X logos were projected in the cafeteria, conference rooms were given new names featuring the letter X, and all bird-related paraphernalia was removed from the cafeteria. Elon Musk declared on his X account, “soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds” to hasten the process.
Elon Musk himself has been interested in the X name for a long time. In 1999, he helped found an online bank called X.com. The company changed its name after it merged with another start-up to form what would become PayPal and he had repurchased the X.com domain in 2017. Tesla also has a sport utility vehicle called the Model X. The holding companies created to close the acquisition of Twitter were named X Holdings. Elon Musk also leads an artificial intelligence company called xAI.
In one glance, Elon Musk has erased 15 years’ worth of brand value from Twitter. According to analysts and brand agencies, Musk’s decision resulted in the elimination of approximately $15 billion to $20 billion in value. X will require the company to rebuild that cultural influence and linguistic recognition from scratch.
Nevertheless, X holds the potential to fulfill its brand’s essence. He personally hopes to transform Twitter into an “everything app” called X, encompassing not only social networking but also banking and shopping. Powered by an AI, X aims to connect people in ways we’re just beginning to imagine. Let’s just witness how all these developments unfold with Elon Musk and his ambitious everything app.
Sources: NY Times, The Verge
