Twitter ditches the bird logo in favour of letter X

Elon Musk has confirmed that Twitter is ditching the famous blue bird in favour of a new logo — a letter he is clearly obsessed with.

Elon Musk really, really likes the letter X.

The world’s richest man confirmed overnight that Twitter, AKA X Corp, is ditching the blue bird logo in favour of the twenty-fourth letter of the alphabet.

It shows Musk is still fixated on the letter X, a love affair that started in 1999 when he founded X.com, the precursor to PayPal.

Elon Musk is ditching the bird in favour of a new logo. Picture: Twitter

At the time, he ignored warnings that the website had sexual connotations.

“Everyone tried to talk him out of naming the company back then because of the sexual innuendos, but he really liked it and stuck with it,” author of Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future Ashlee Vance told NPR.

Since then, his affinity with the letter X has only deepened.

Not sure what subtle clues gave it way, but I like the letter X pic.twitter.com/nwB2tEfLr8

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 23, 2023

Like this but X pic.twitter.com/PRLMMA2lYl

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 23, 2023

X

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 11, 2023

He founded the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation [Space X] in 2002 and the Model X is one of the most popular Tesla vehicles.

One of his sons was named X Æ A-Xii and his daughter was named Exa Dark Sideræl (she was later renamed Y).

Earlier this year it was revealed that Twitter Inc. had merged into a company named X Corp.

Apart from Elon Musk, the letter X is rarely used, only appearing in about 0.15 per cent of words.

In algebra, it’s often used to represent a figure with an unknown value.

Musk stated on Twitter that the interim X logo would go live today, and posted a gif of the letter X.

“Soon we shall bid adieu to the Twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds,” he tweeted around midnight, implying an end to the imagery from where the very word “tweet” stems.

“Like this but X,” the billionaire SpaceX boss said, above a picture of the Twitter bird over a black and white marbled background.”

And why is he making the change?

“To embody the imperfections in us all that make us unique,” he replied to a post.

Twitter, founded in 2006 and whose name is a play on the sound of birds chattering, has used avian branding since its early days, when the company bought a stock symbol of a light blue bird for $15, according to the design website Creative Bloq.

The Twitter logo is seen on a sign on the exterior of Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, California. Picture: AFP

Musk, whose net worth is estimated to be about $350 billion, has indicated Twitter could morph into an “everything app” called X.

The 52-year-old Tesla founder has previously said that his rocky takeover of Twitter last year was “an accelerant to creating X, the everything app,” a reference to the X.com company he founded in 1999, a later version of which went on to become PayPal.

Such an app could still function as a social media platform, and also include messaging and mobile payments.

Musk has already named Twitter’s parent company the X Corporation.

“If a good enough X logo is posted tonight, we’ll make (it) go live worldwide tomorrow,” he said.

Musk went on to make several other X-related comments, saying a new emblem should be “of course, Art Deco” style and that under the site’s new identity a post would be called “an X”. Twitter is thought to have around 200 million daily active users but it has suffered repeated technical failures since the tycoon bought the so-called bird app for $44 billion in 2022 and sacked much of its staff.

Since then, many users and advertisers alike have soured on the social media site thanks to charges introduced for previously free services, changes to content moderation and the return of previously banned right-wing accounts.

Musk said earlier this month that Twitter has lost roughly half of its advertising revenue since he took control in October.

Facebook parent Meta earlier this month launched its own text-based platform, called Threads, which has up to 150 million users according to some estimates.

But the amount of time users spend on the rival app has plummeted in the weeks since its launch, however, according to data from market analysis firm Sensor Tower.

- with AFP