Plans to rebrand twitter by changing the iconic logo to an ‘X’
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Changes so far
Business magnate Elon Musk initiated the acquisition of Twitter, Inc. on April 14, 2022, and completed on October 27, 2022. He acted as the CEO of the company till June of 2024 and was replaced by Linda Yaccarino. Under Elon, the company went through a huge number of changes. Some of these include the reduction in the workforce by approximately 80%, closure of Twitter’s one of three data centers, mass firing of Twitters moderation team which was replaced by a feature called ‘Community Notes’ and the reinstation of a number of previously banned accounts such as Andrew Tate and Donald Trump. Another huge change involves the company rolling out a new paid system for the blue tick for $8 per month and $1000 for an organizational gold badge.
New Changes
This Sunday, Elon has another bombshell, claiming that he plans to change the logo of Twitter. This has taken the whole internet by shock. Using a series of posts in Twitter, the tech genius said that he plans to make the change to Twitter’s iconic blue bird worldwide as soon as Monday. He wrote in a melancholic tone that we shall soon bid farewell to all birds gradually.
He has stated that Tweets will be called an X and followers will be called ‘viewers’. This move makes the platform a tad bit like YouTube or TikTok.
Obsession with E(X)
He plans to change to logo to an “X” and this change isn’t surprising to anyone who has been following Elon for quite some time. Elon aims to build ‘X’ as an everything app and buying Twitter was just another step towards achieving this.
His startup was called X.com, which later evolved out to become PayPal. His rocket company is commonly known as SpaceX. Elon also tweeted, “Not sure what subtle clues gave it way, but I like the letter X,”. If we walk through our memory lane, we will remember the countless memes around Elon naming is child X Æ A-12.
Future Vision
The CEO of Twitter, Yaccarino, chimed in, adding on to Elon via Twitter. She tweeted that X will go further, and transform the global time square. She further added that X will create a space of unlimited interactivity – all including audio, video, messaging, payments and banking – thus creating an integrated space for ideas, goods, services and opportunities.
Criticisms and Backlashes
The company was already facing criticism when the decision to limit the number of tweets per day a user can read was announced. This change in wind led to the pole siding towards the Meta-owned rival of Twitter, Threads. Threads claims to have crossed a 100 million sign-ups within 5 days of its launch. An additional backlash being faced by the company is the most recent lawsuit claiming that the company owes its former employees at least $500 million in severance pay.
All of these culminated to the company running at a loss. The company laid off roughly 80% of its employees in an effort to avoid bankruptcy as the advertisers are running away from all the drama as they do not want their names to be dragged down with the company. This has led to a decrease in the advertisement revenue for the company.
In late April, Elon tweeted that the advertisers have returned back, but he failed to provide any further details. It would be interesting to watch how the billionaire, genius and tech pioneer would sail across all of these issues and achieve his goal.
