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Welcome to another strange day in the tech circus that is Twitter – or should we say, X, as the social media site will seemingly now be called, following a swift rebrand over the weekend.
Elon Musk started tweeting yesterday about Twitter’s sudden rebrand to X, which follows the business being renamed X Corp last year. A new logo was quickly crowd-sourced on Twitter – and it looks like the full rebrand is going ahead, despite it having the hallmarks of another kneejerk publicity stunt.
But why is this happening and what does it mean for Twitter? We’ll be exploring that below in our liveblog, so stay tuned for all of the latest updates. And if you don’t fancy jumping on the dizzying Twitter carousel, we’ll also be rounding up all of the latest news that broke over the weekend.
This includes the imminent launch of an official ChatGPT for Android this week – and in less good news, Spotify’s likely raising of individual Premium pricing in the US. But first, it’s time to unravel the demise of Twitter’s blue bird…
And soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birdsJuly 23, 2023
There’s only one place to start with today’s tech news – Twitter’s overnight rebranding to X. It started with yesterday’s Tweet above from Elon Musk, which kicked off a fast-paced makeover for the social media site that gave it a new logo.
Over the next few hours, Musk took part in a Twitter Spaces chat (where he stated that “we’re cutting the Twitter logo from the building with blowtorches”) and changed his Twitter profile to the new logo.
So what exactly is going on? As ever with Musk, there method to the apparent madness remains slightly unclear, but it’s likely to be related to Musk’s recent announcement of xAI and his desire to turn Twitter into an all-encompassing app in the guide of China’s WeChat. More on that shortly…
X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities. Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine.July 23, 2023
What exactly is the plan behind Twitter’s X rebrand? Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino has tried to explain the vision (above), which sounds an awful lot like the app wants to become an all-encompassing answer to WeChat.
Yaccarino states that messaging will just be another part of the new Twitter, sitting alongside “payments/banking” (interestingly, Musk’s original X.com merged with PayPal back in March 2000) to help create a “global marketplace”. Sounds like memes might become something of a Twitter sideline…
The blue bird is gone!
Twitter isn’t messing around with this X rebranding. For us, the blue bird logo has now disappeared from the web version of the homepage – presumably, the same will happen soon to the mobile app.
This all follows the slightly sinister projection of the new X logo onto Twitter’s building last night, which looks more like a scene from a Batman movie than a rebrand of one of the world’s most-loved social networks.
This all makes Twitter’s “what is happening?!” prompt seem all the more fitting today…
Our headquarters tonight pic.twitter.com/GO6yY8R7fOJuly 24, 2023
pic.twitter.com/IwcbqMnQtAJuly 23, 2023
Why is Twitter turning into X?
Before we delve into the deeper reasons for Twitter’s rebrand, why X? After all, it’s a pretty neutral, some might say dull, replacement for the charming (and globally recognized) blue Twitter bird.
Well, Elon Musk has had something of an obsession with X. He started with X.com in 1999, which later became part of PayPal – then there’s SpaceX (the rockets and spacecraft company), the Tesla Model X and the recent launch of xAI (a new generative artificial intelligence venture).
So killing the Twitter logo with an X is very much on-brand for Musk’s companies, and sees it fit into his growing collection of tech brands. But it also likely marks the start of Twitter’s change from a messaging app into an ‘everything’ app that takes us full circle back to those early attempts to disrupt the traditional banking industry…
Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything appOctober 4, 2022
Why this is happening: theory no.1
Twitter’s rebrand into X hasn’t come completely out of the blue, so to speak – Elon Musk stated that this was his intention back in October 2022 with the Tweet above stating that X would be “the everything app”.
He followed that up by stating that buying Twitter in a deal valued at $44 billion “probably accelerates X by 3 to 5 years”. Since then, many have questioned the wisdom of trying to create an “everything app” like WeChat, because tech regulation would surely ultimately try to break it up.
But the headwinds of popular opinion haven’t stopped Musk before, and it seems he’s plowing on with that plan to transform Twitter into that all-encompassing app regardless…
Not sure what subtle clues gave it way, but I like the letter X pic.twitter.com/nwB2tEfLr8July 23, 2023
Why this is happening: theory no.2
As always with Elon Musk ventures, conspiracy theories abound. With Musk previously warning that bankruptcy has been a possibility for Twitter, some have suggested that this rebrand could simply be part of a ploy to worm out of the site’s difficult financial position.
Bankruptcy could theoretically help Twitter refinance its debts, while over on Meta’s Threads some are suggesting it could more be a way to protect the Twitter brand ahead of a future sale, if and when X files for bankruptcy.
This is all highly speculative, of course, but Musk clearly wouldn’t be erasing a globally recognized brand like Twitter without a close eye on the financial consequences.