The blue bird is no more. Linda Yaccarino, the recently-appointed chief executive of Twitter, announced on Monday that the social media platform will undergo a rebranding effort, becoming “X”.
In 2022, Tesla owner and billionaire Elon Musk purchased the ailing social media platform for $44 billion, committing to radical changes to make the company profitable. This included massive layoffs and a new paid subscription service.
On Monday, the platform launched its new “X” logo, dropping the iconic blue bird that the company has used since 2006. A new splash page on the website features the “X” branding. In a response to users, Musk said on the platform that tweets would now be referred to as “Xs”. For now, the platform is still using the Twitter name.
“X is here! We will do it,” Yaccarino wrote on Twitter, posting a photo of the company’s new logo, a white X on a black background. In his Twitter bio, site owner Musk posted a new link, “X.com”, which currently redirects to Twitter.
The bigger picture
Shortly after Musk purchased the company, the Tesla founder changed the official company name to X Corp, hinting at further expansion of the company’s services. Musk had previously stated that he wanted to turn the site into a “super app”, allowing customers to use a number of different services, similar to China’s WeChat.
On Sunday, the Twitter CEO also announced that the company intends to rapidly expand into the fields of payments, banking, and e-commerce.
“Powered by AI, X will connect us in ways we are only just beginning to imagine,” Yaccarino wrote on Sunday. “X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centred in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities.”
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The rebrand and expansion plans come against a backdrop of financial difficulties at Twitter and growing competition from rivals such as Meta’s new platform, Threads. Yaccarino, formerly the head of NBCUniversal, was brought on board in a bid to assure investors after Musk laid off nearly half of his staff and lost nearly half of the site's advertising revenue.
Twitter, now X, is working hard to reassure investors and bring back profitability, all while trying to keep its up to 350 million active users happy. Rival threads already enjoys around 150 million users.
