New York CNN –
As part of a radical rebrand, Twitter owner Elon Musk has begun replacing Twitter’s iconic bird logo with an X.
Musk made the shocking announcement of his plans early Sunday. By Monday morning US time, he tweeted that X.com now links to Twitter.com.
“The provisional one
The social media giant official account now sports the same logo, although the familiar blue bird can still be seen on the website.
He previously said he was saying goodbye “to the Twitter brand and little by little to all the birds.”
Founded in 2006, Twitter (TWTR) has used its vibrant, globally recognized blue bird emblem for more than a decade.
The rebrand could be seen as a sort of Hail Mary rebranding for the company: Musk has warned repeatedly in recent months that Twitter is on the brink of bankruptcy amid sharp falls in ad revenue.
To add to the pressure, rival social media platform Threads launched by Facebook (FB), parent company Meta, earlier this month. More than 100 million users were registered in the first week.
Twitter had 238 million active users before Musk took it private in October 2022.
One of the richest men in the world, Musk was once best known for his innovative efforts through SpaceX and Tesla (TSLA) to launch rockets and build electric cars.
He now makes many headlines because of his eccentric statements on his personal Twitter account – he often shares conspiracy theories and gets into public arguments on the social media platform.
Musk revamped the site after acquiring it for $44 billion in late October. This was followed by mass layoffs, disputes over allegedly owed severance payments in the millions and Musk’s advice to employees that staying at the company would mean “long working hours with high intensity”. He wrote: “Only exceptional performance counts as passed.”
The upheaval prompted organizations including the Anti-Defamation League, Free Press and GLAAD to pressure brands to reconsider advertising on Twitter.
The groups cited the mass layoffs as a key factor in their deliberations, citing fears that Musk’s cuts would render Twitter’s election integrity policies virtually unenforceable even if they technically remain active.
Musk also began monitoring controversial policy changes that caused frequent service disruptions to Twitter, upending his own reputation in the process.
David Odisho/Getty Images
Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco in November 2022
In June, Musk named Linda Yaccarino, a former head of marketing at NBCUniversal, as the company’s CEO.
Commenting on the name change on Twitter Sunday afternoon, she said, “It’s an extraordinarily rare thing – in life or in business – that you get a second chance to make another big impression.” Twitter has made a tremendous impact and transformed the way we communicate. Now X will go one step further and transform the global city square.”
At the beginning of the new company, it faces challenges. Musk recently revealed that the platform is still cash flow negative due to a 50% drop in ad revenue and a heavy debt burden.
Musk has criticized the exit or pause of Twitter advertisers like General Mills (GIS), Macy’s (M) and some auto companies that compete with Tesla, calling himself a “free speech absolutist” and saying he wants to buy Twitter to make it easier for users to freely express themselves on the platform.
Musk justified his approach to free speech by saying, “Can someone you don’t like say something you don’t like?” And if that’s the case, then we have free speech.”
He added that Twitter would be “very reluctant to take things down” and that the platform would aim to allow any legal expression. Many users fear that this could lead to an increase in hate speech.
By now, the initial frenzy over competing threads seems to have come back down to earth, largely because the company has been plagued by spam and lacks several user-friendly features that Twitter, or now X, offers.
Adam Mosseri, who oversees threads launch for Meta, has hinted at plans to add features like a desktop version of the app, a feed of only accounts that a user is following, and an edit button.
The ability to gain advertising support has not yet been proven.