Elon Musk has said he is making one of the most visible changes to Twitter since taking control of the social media company last fall. It was to replace the widely known bird logo.
and Tweet “Soon we will be saying goodbye to the Twitter brand and gradually saying goodbye to all the birds,” Musk said early Sunday morning ET.
he Added Shortly thereafter, “if a good enough X logo is posted tonight,” it will be “launched worldwide tomorrow.”
The “X” is a term Musk describes as “any app” that combines social media, instant messaging and payment services, similar to the popular Chinese app WeChat.
Mr. Mask Said The acquisition of Twitter is “a catalyst for the creation of X,” and the corporation he set up to buy and manage Twitter is called X Holdings.
Musk said in an audio livestream on Twitter early Sunday that he would change the Twitter logo. “Should have done it a long time ago,” he said. “Sorry, it’s been too long.”
“We are indeed moving to X,” Musk said in an email to Twitter employees a few hours later, saying it happened “today.” “This is the last message from my Twitter email,” he wrote, ending with a salute emoji.
After taking the company private as part of the acquisition, Mr. Musk has few obstacles to making these changes to the company. But he could still face resistance from banks that have loaned him billions of dollars, as well as retail investors that have lured him into the deal, which could raise concerns about parting with one of Twitter’s most recognizable assets.
The company’s advertising revenue has plummeted. Amid concerns that sales executives have left, making it easier for the site to host problematic content. The company now faces a well-funded rival in Threads, a Twitter-like service recently introduced by Facebook owner Meta.
Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Musk has long had an affinity for the letter X. In 1999 he X.com, an online bank that later merged with another start-up to form PayPal. In 2017 he said: I bought back my X.com domain from paypal.
Musk doesn’t always follow through on his public statements: tweeted The company said it will set up a content moderation council to determine what speech is acceptable on the site.
But he has pushed for certain Twitter practice changes, such as ending free verification of high-profile user accounts, denoted by white and blue checkmarks, and instead charging users a subscription fee for checkmarks.
