Twitter boss Elon Musk has announced that he is scrapping the platform’s iconic blue bird logo – and that could happen as early as tomorrow.
The Tesla and SpaceX boss, who took over Twitter last October, tweeted the update early Sunday morning, announcing that the bird logo will be replaced with a simple “X” once he finds the right design.
Many thousands of users participated in Musk’s answers and dropped design suggestions for the new logo.
“And soon we’ll be saying goodbye to the Twitter brand and little by little to all the birds,” followed by the words, “If a good enough X logo is posted tonight, we’ll be releasing 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.”
Early Sunday morning, Elon Musk announced that Twitter’s famous bird logo might change to an X as early as Monday
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.
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 was being renamed X Corp following a merger, but that the social media platform’s short form would retain its original name.
The announcement comes almost 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 launch of the new project also raises the question of whether Musk will soon attempt to add an “x” to Twitter’s name or change it altogether.
Musk has a flickering version of this X pinned to the top of his profile. It’s unclear if this is the logo he will ultimately use as the site’s official new image
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 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.