Elon Musk explains why Twitter had to rebrand itself to ‘X’ and dump the blue bird

Elon Musk on Monday (July 24) explained his decision to rebrand Twitter as ‘X’ and strip the social media platform of its iconic blue-bird logo. After a user wrote about the companies that had changed their name over the years, Musk responded and cleared it was not ‘simply’ a renaming process. 

In a post on X, Musk said acquiring Twitter was to ensure freedom of speech as well as “act as an accelerant for X – the everything app.”

“This is not simply a company renaming itself, but doing the same thing,” Musk wrote, adding that Twitter had served its purpose and that it had evolved past its name. 

“The Twitter name made sense when it was just 140 character messages going back and forth – like birds tweeting – but now you can post almost anything, including several hours of video,” wrote Musk. 

The billionaire also hinted at the big changes that were coming, including transformation of the platform into a financial app. 

“In the months to come, we will add comprehensive communications and the ability to conduct your entire financial world. The Twitter name does not make sense in that context, so we must bid adieu to the bird,” Musk emphasised. 

This is not the first instance when Musk has explained his rationale. Even before completing the $44 billion deal for Twitter in 2022, Musk said, “Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app.”

In April this year, a filing in a federal court case in California revealed Twitter had been renamed to X Corp. In the same month, Musk tweeted only the letter ‘X’ to his millions of followers.

The X connection to Musk’s first venture

For long, Musk had been obsessed with the letter ‘X’. The rebranding of Twitter to X is the culmination of a long-term desire of the billionaire. In 1999, Musk named his first venture as X.com—an online banking and financial services platform. A year later, he was forced to step down as the CEO of that firm.

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

However, Musk persevered and 24 years later, he has the opportunity to use Twitter’s existing mass user base to catapult his ‘everything app’ idea. 

(With inputs from agencies)