LONDON (AP) — Elon Musk unveiled a new black-and-white “X” logo to replace Twitter’s famous blue bird as he continues a major rebrand of the social media platform that bought for $44 billion last year.
Musk replaced his own Twitter icon with a white X on a black background and on Monday posted an image of the design projected at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters.
The X began appearing at the top of the desktop version of Twitter on Monday, but the bird continued to dominate the phone app.
musk had asked fans for logo ideas and chose one, which he described as minimalist Art Deco, saying that it “will certainly be refined”.
“And soon we will say goodbye to the Twitter brand and gradually to all the birds,” Musk tweeted on Sunday.
The billionaire is CEO of the rocket company Space Exploration Technologies Corp., commonly known as SpaceX. And in 1999, he founded a startup called X.com, an online financial services company now known as PayPal.
The X.com web domain now redirects users to Twitter.com, Musk said.
In response to questions about what the tweets would be called when rebranded, Musk said they would be called Xs.
Musk, the CEO of Tesla, has long been fascinated by the letter. The billionaire is also the CEO of the rocket company Space Exploration Technologies Corp., commonly known as SpaceX. And in 1999, he founded a startup called X.com, an online financial services company now known as PayPal.
He names his son with singer Grimes, whose real name is a collection of letters and symbols, “X.”
Musk’s purchase and rebranding of Twitter is part of his strategy to create what he has termed a ” everything app ” similar to China’s WeChat, which combines video chats, messaging, streaming and payments.
Linda Yaccarino, the longtime NBC Universal executive Musk chose to be Twitter CEO in May, he published the new logo and gave his opinion on the change, write on twitter that X would be “the future state of unlimited interactivity, centered on audio, video, messaging, payment/banking, creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities.”
Experts, however, predicted that the new name will confuse much of Twitter’s audience, which has already been souring on the social media platform following a series of other changes by Musk. The site also faces new Threads competitionthe new application from Meta, the parent of Facebook and Instagram, which is aimed directly at Twitter users.
