Twitter‘s iconic blue bird is dead.
Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of the social media service, has replaced the brand’s iconic name and blue logo with a simpler one: X.
As of Monday morning, the new white and black X logo has replaced Twitter’s ousted bird on the desktop version of the social platform. The mobile Twitter app has yet to be changed.
Searching X.com already redirects users to Twitter.com.
Musk, 52, also replaced his own Twitter photo with the X logo. Early Monday morning, he shared an image of the Twitter headquarters in San Francisco lit up with a projection of the brand-new logo.
The name change and new simplistic logo come as part of a sweeping rebrand to the platform. The overhaul comes at a time when the platform faces real competition from Meta’s new app, Threads. The text-based pairing to Meta’s Instagram has attracted many social media users who say they’re upset with Twitter’s direction under Musk.
Musk first announced the rebrand to his more than 149 million followers and asked Twitter users to submit their design ideas for an X logo.
Then on Monday, Twitter’s CEO Linda Yaccarino shared the finalized logo only hours before it appeared on users’ feeds.
“X is here! Let’s do this,” she wrote.
Yaccarino, who was appointed to the CEO position in June, earlier wrote that the rebrand is “a second chance to make another big impression.”
“Twitter made one massive impression and changed the way we communicate. Now, X will go further, transforming the global town square,” she wrote.
Yaccarino said X would be an expansion of Twitter’s current capabilities and could see future users engage with audio and video content, messaging and the ability to make payments in “a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities.”
She said X would be powered by artificial intelligence (AI).
X as a name is not a new choice for Musk. Musk’s rocket company, Space Exploration Technologies Corp., is commonly known as SpaceX. And in 1999, Musk founded a startup called X.com, an online financial services company now known as PayPal.
One of Musk’s children, named X Æ A-12, is also commonly referred to as “X.”
Musk gave a nod to his unoriginal name with a photo of himself at what appears to be an event for his Tesla Model X. In the photo, Musk is crossing his arms in an ‘X’ shape.
“Not sure what subtle clues gave it way, but I like the letter X,” he wrote.
Twitter’s rebrand into X has so far been met with apprehension from much of the platform’s user base. Digs against Musk came fast and furious over the course of Monday morning.
Since Musk purchased Twitter, revenue has dropped sharply and roughly three-fourths of the workforce has been laid off to slash costs and avoid bankruptcy.
Luring advertisers is essential for Musk and Twitter after many fled in the early months after his takeover of the social media platform, fearing damage to their brands in the enveloping chaos. Advertisers have cut back on spending partly because of changes Musk has made that have allowed for more hateful content to flourish and that has offended a wider part of the platform’s audience.
Musk said in late April that advertisers had returned but provided no specifics.
— With files from The Associated Press
© 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
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