Effective immediately, Elon Musk is rebranding Twitter and changing the site’s name to “X,” continuing his long-standing fascination with the letter X that has informed many of his projects.
The change, announced in a series of tweets from the Tesla and SpaceX leader, marks the latest in a series of upheavals on the social media platform since Musk, 52, bought it late last year.
For 25 years, Musk’s affinity for writing has grown in both his professional and personal lives, though he rarely gives a reason for it.
Now it looks like one of the biggest social media apps will soon be known by the singular.
“I’m excited to work with Linda to transform this platform into X, the everything app,” Musk recently wrote on Twitter, referring to new CEO Linda Yaccarino.
Effective immediately, Elon Musk is rebranding Twitter and changing the site’s name to “X,” continuing his long-standing fascination with the letter X that has informed many of his projects
One of Musk’s first companies was called X.com and was launched by Musk in 1999 as an online banking and financial services platform.
A year later he had to resign as CEO of the company.
Three years later, he made $165 million when eBay bought what has since been renamed PayPal.
In 2017, he launched a new website with a cryptic “x” marking the location of a domain name he bought earlier that week.
The address the Tesla billionaire bought for “sentimental” reasons was the location of his second startup company, which later became PayPal.
On Sunday, following the announcement of Twitter’s rebranding, he announced that X.com would now redirect to Twitter.
This was Musk’s first major use of the letter X, but not his last.
Musk is also the founder and CEO of SpaceX, officially known as Space Exploration Technologies Corporation.
He founded the company in 2002 and it recently embarked on its $3 billion test flight, which was considered a huge success even after it erupted in a spectacular ball of flames.
SpaceX and even NASA hailed the maiden flight of the new mammoth rocket as “exciting” and a success. Musk was particularly optimistic afterwards, promising to come back to the market “in a few months.”
One of Musk’s first companies was called X.com and was launched by Musk in 1999 as an online banking and financial services platform
Tesla, where Musk is CEO, is selling the Model X, which went on sale commercially in 2016
Tesla, where Musk is CEO, is selling the Model X, which went on sale commercially in 2016.
The car, a mid-size luxury crossover SUV, can be recognized by its falcon doors.
He also brought the letter into his personal life and gave his son the letter as a nickname.
Musk and his former partner, musician Grimes, caused a stir in May 2020 when they revealed their newborn son’s name: X Æ A-12.
The billionaire reportedly nicknamed the little boy “X,” for short.
Shortly after his appointment, the name was changed from X Æ A-12 to X Æ A-Xii after violating California naming laws, which mandate the use of alphanumeric characters.
Musk’s love life has been the subject of intrigue for years, with the Space-X founder going through a string of divorces and high-profile relationships lately.
Elon Musk holds his son X in Team Red Bull’s garage during practice for the Miami Grand Prix in May
The CEO first hinted at some big changes to the site early Sunday morning, which has struggled with falling user numbers and rising competition in recent months, revealing that the bird logo would soon be replaced with a simple “X”.
He hinted that the icon is part of a larger rebranding of the entire platform and could be implemented as early as tomorrow as he searches for the right design.
Hours later, as viewers continued to debate the news and its legitimacy online, the sometimes satirical CEO made it clear that he meant business – revealing that a URL redirect was already in place that will now take users typing X.com straight to the site.
“X.com is now pointing to https://twitter.com/,” Musk wrote around 1:45 p.m. in a tweet that has garnered more than 7 million views.
Of the newly announced logo, which is still pending, he claimed, “The preliminary X logo will go live later today.”
Elon Musk has announced that he will be rebranding Twitter effective immediately, changing the site’s name to “X” and the platform’s iconic blue bird logo to match
Many thousands of users contributed to Musk’s responses, offering design suggestions for the new logo and questions about his rationale for the new name.
Some sarcastically joked about what would become of the already widely accepted term “tweet” after the overhaul.
“I’m not sure what it’s going to be called now!” Post? X post? Xost?’ someone wrote.
Another asked similarly: “If Twitter is renamed X, what would we call future ‘tweets’?”
Someone else snapped, “So it’s not a tweet anymore, is it?”
Others appeared to mock the notoriously flippant executive following his announcement, with some noting the increasing pressure he is facing from the recent emergence of meta-owned threads and the falling market valuation of his new venture.
‘ur[sic] actually so annoying. What’s really the reason?” one person said shortly after the announcement — ending a stream of Musk consciousness-style tweets alluding to a large-scale rebrand.
“Get to the threads at this point,” added another.
In typical fashion, Musk tried to ride out the storm of sarcastic posts, and within moments asked his approximately 149 million followers, “What shall we call tweeting?”
Several in turn responded with their own verbs to describe the process of posting on the now-evolving social media site.
“Xweeting,” one wrote; “Xpressing,” wrote another.
Hours earlier, Musk hinted at some minor but still groundbreaking changes to the platform, with various photos showing a stylized shape of the letter “x” — including a photo of himself crossing his arms.
Many thousands of users contributed to Musk’s responses, offering design suggestions for the new logo and questions about his rationale for the new name
Hours earlier, Musk hinted at some minor but still groundbreaking changes to the platform, with various photos including a stylized shape of the letter x
“And soon we’ll be saying goodbye to the Twitter brand and goodbye to all birds, one by one,” Musk said in a morning post.
Shortly after, another post added: “If a good enough X logo is released tonight, we will release it worldwide tomorrow.”
Following the announcement, he gave potential designers some creative advice: “If the X comes closest stylistically, then of course it should be Art Deco.”
He then posted a darkened version of the current Twitter logo and wrote, “Like but X.”
Eventually, Musk posted a flickering video of an X passing the bird and pinned it to the top of his profile.
The image was suggested by Sawyer Merritt, co-founder of a sustainable clothing brand, and designed by Alex Tourville, a physics engineer.
It’s not clear if the pinned X is what Musk will use for the company’s logo going forward.
In typical fashion, Musk tried to ride out the storm of sarcastic posts, and within moments asked his approximately 149 million followers, “What shall we call tweeting?”
The site’s current logo, known as Larry the Bird, has been Twitter’s iconic symbol since its inception in 2006, with the current design having been in use since 2012.
According to Twitter’s website, Larry is “our most recognizable asset” and “the reason we protect it so much.”
In April, the site’s logo was briefly replaced with an image of a Shibu Inu dog, which helped boost the market value of Dogecoin, the popular meme coin, by $4 billion.
That same month, an email was sent to Twitter’s business partners, informing them that the company had been renamed X Corp following a merger, but the short form of the social media platform would keep its original name — for now.
X Corp could also act as a future parent company for Musk’s other companies: Neuralink, SpaceX, Tesla, and The Boring Company.
When the company’s filings were released in April, Musk tweeted a simple “X” to his millions of followers. It’s unclear if and when Musk will change Twitter’s name.
Musk appeared to allude to the court filings with a tweet in which he simply said, “X”
According to the Twitter site, Larry is “our most recognizable asset” and “the reason we’re so protective of it.”
Musk showed his users an example of the aesthetic he envisions for the new logo
The logo announcement comes nearly two weeks after the launch of Musk’s new artificial intelligence startup, xAI — which is now the sole user of Musk’s Twitter bio.
The Musk-led startup wants to offer an alternative to ChatGPT.
According to Musk, who has repeatedly warned against the unregulated development of AI, the company will create a “maximally curious” AI.
“If it’s trying to understand the true nature of the universe, that’s actually the best I can come up with from an AI security perspective,” he said. “I think it’s going to be pro-humanist because humanity is just so much more interesting than non-humanity.”
The logo change would be the latest in a series of changes that have roiled the company since Musk acquired it.
He was previously criticized for ditching the company the vast majority of its employees in April and monetizing the “verified” blue check status.
Earlier this month, Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta launched its own short-form posting app called Threads.
Mark Zuckerberg said more than 30 million people signed up for the competing service in the first 24 hours.
Twitter has threatened to sue the company over allegedly stolen trade secrets.