Sudden death of Twitter as Musk introduces ‘X’

Elon Musk rebrands and renames Twitter and changed it’s iconic bird logo and replaced it with an ‘X’. The 52 year old Tesla founder has confirmed that the acquisition of Twitter last year was a catalyst for the creation of X, well rounded application. It is a derivative of X.com, a company which Musk had established and later evolved into the payment app, PayPal. The logo of the app was just released a few hours ago and is completely contrasting to the old and extremely popular logo.

Why the change from Twitter to X?

Six months after Elon Musk gained acquisition of Twitter, he merged the company into another entity which is known as X corp. The model of the company is to emulate ‘WeChat’ from China which is a do-it-all app, and has features from chatting, texting to paying bills and ordering taxis. In June 2022, Musk himself said, “You basically live on WeChat in China. If we can recreate that with Twitter, we’ll be a great success.”

Twitter CEO, Linda Yaccarino, is calling X “a second chance for making a better impression”. She mentions that the other features that have been rebranded in the past few months have been a part of the shift from Twitter to X, from having paid verified ticks, to adding paywalls to twitter’s new features. She ends the note by saying the application X will deliver everything and Twitter is working with many other partners to bring X to life.

A court document was said to be submitted on April 4^th, which stated that Twitter would no longer be an independent entity. “Twitter Inc. has been merged into X Corp. and no longer exists. X Corp. is a privately held corporation, incorporated in Nevada, and with its principal place of business in San Francisco, California,” the document contained. Elon Musk is the owner of both the companies and X corp was found in March.

Elon Musk as the Monarch of Twitter

Although he is an extremely ambitious and innovative man, the Tesla owner has been remarkably unpopular since his acquisition of Twitter because of the numerous changes he had brought to the app. A fan favorite app became a capitalistic cash grab to one of the world’s richest men, as the blue tick legacy system was replaced with a paid verification system, and the ticks were brought yet back again. He then also released gold and silver ticks for brands and government figures, respectively.

Amongst more of his controversial activities were the reinstation of accounts of controversial hate figures like Kanye West, who made a lot of antisemitic comments, Andrew Tate, who is Romania facing charges for human trafficking and Donald Trump, who was accused of having instigated the capitol riots. 

Twitter’s revenue had dropped significantly, reporting about a steep 50% fall in ad revenue and the site was in loss before the acquisition, not generating enough profit despite its popularity in modern culture. Musk’s new introductions of pay-walling fan-favorite features were like another stab in the already dead man’s chest. Many influencers have announced their intentions to quit Twitter after the supposed transformation. 

The new era of ‘X’

The new logo ‘X’ was released just an hour ago, with a completely different outlook on the app. A dark, minimalistic ‘X’ has taken the new face of the app and its entire entity. The twitter building has also been redesigned to suit the new changes. The suddenness of the changes along with many people’s shock of the idea of Twitter being changed permanently will be massive, especially those who were scornful of Musk’s ideas from the beginning.

No matter how erratic his actions might seem sometimes, the concept is certainly grandiose. With Twitter’s heavy debt and losses, perhaps Musk had no choice but to save it’s grace by undergoing this huge transformation instead of simply creating a new app by himself. If he succeeds in delivering everything he promises, the app will certainly be another cane to rely on in our technological future.