Elon Musk's X Rebrand Has Us Asking: Y?
Elon Musk has been Elon Musk-ing again. This time he inexplicably rebranded Twitter for no rhyme or reason and, worst of all, he announced it on a damn Sunday evening.
The Tesla bossman took to what was formerly Twitter to share imminent plans of its transition to X, the one-letter he has used repeatedly in company and product names throughout his career.
“X.com now points to twitter.com,” read one of Musk’s many tweets. “Interim X logo goes live later today.”
Now, Musk is what I like to call an “ideas guy.” He is the person at the table apologizing for "just spit-balling." He’s the one whose brain never fully rests, in part because it’s so full of grandeur ideas but also because it’s fueled exclusively by pint cans of Monster.
Sure, this chaotic entrepreneurial nous might have seen Musk become one of the wealthiest humans on earth, but it's also birthed some real stinkers.
Take turning dirt into bricks and then using them to build low-income apartments, or offering to fight Mark Zuckerberg who would undoubtedly absolutely batter him. Musk is a man of many thoughts but few, if any, are great.
On July 23 Musk confirmed that Twitter would be changing its logo to an X imminently and replacing the epochal bird icon it’s had since 2003. Alas by the morning of July 24 it had happened. This follows the official renaming of Twitter’s business to X Corp shortly after Musk’s $44 billion acquisition late last year.
In unrelated news, Twitter is currently worth $15 billion or so, about one-third of what Musk paid for it.
“Soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds,” continued Musk in one of his many other tweets. “If a good enough X logo is posted tonight, we’ll make go live worldwide tomorrow,” he later added.
According to a Threads post, shortly after the announcement Musk sent all Twitter employees an email advising them of the impending rebrand while also confirming that said email will be the last email he’d ever send from a Twitter address.
While many are all for the rebrand (or anything Musk does, for that), an overhaul of this scale could prove a risky move, especially when considering that not everyone is completely obsessed with absolutely everything Musk turns his hand to.
For the majority (including myself) the rebrand is raising one question: why? Twitter has dubbed its bird logo its most recognizable asset, so changing it (along with almost everything else on the platform) seems a little unnecessary, if not pointless.
After nearly two decades at the forefront of global social media, Twitter has seen Musk come in and rewrite its rule book. And by that, I mean he’s come into a company he’s bought for $44 billion and is doing whatever the fuck he wants with it. He is an ideas man, after all.
