In a radical rebranding, Twitter owner Elon Musk has replaced Twitter’s iconic bird logo with X.
Musk made the shock announcement of his plans early Sunday. By Monday morning US time, he tweeted that X.com now points to Twitter.com.
“Interim X logo goes live later today,” he wrote, shortly before sharing a photo of Twitter’s headquarters lit up by a giant new X.
The Twitter website now features the same logo, while the familiar blue bird is gone.
Previously, Musk said he was bidding “adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds.”
Twitter (TWTR), founded in 2006, has used its vivid, globally recognized blue bird emblem for more than a decade.
The renaming could be seen as something of a brand overhaul “Hail Mary” for the company: Musk in recent months has repeatedly warned that Twitter, facing steep losses in ad revenue, was on the edge of bankruptcy.
Increasing the pressure, earlier this month rival social media platform Threads launched from Facebook (FB) parent Meta. It surpassed 100 million user sign-ups in its first week.
Twitter had 238 million active users prior to being taken private by Musk in October 2022.
Spats, mass layoffs
One of the world’s richest men, Musk was once best known for his innovative efforts through companies SpaceX and Tesla (TSLA) to launch rockets and build electric cars.
Now, many of the headlines he makes are for his eccentric remarks on his personal Twitter account – often sharing conspiracy theories and getting into public spats on the social media platform.
Musk overhauled the site after acquiring it for $44 billion in late October, then followed with mass layoffs, disputes over millions of dollars allegedly owed in severance and Musk’s note to employees that remaining at the company would mean “working long hours at high intensity.” He wrote: “Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.”
The upheaval prompted organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League, Free Press and GLAAD, to pressure brands to rethink advertising on Twitter.
The groups pointed to the mass layoffs as a key factor in their thinking, citing fears that Musk’s cuts would make Twitter’s election-integrity policies effectively unenforceable, even if they technically remain active.
Musk also began overseeing controversial policy changes which led to frequent service disruptions at Twitter and upended his own reputation in the process.