Twitter becomes X: Can Elon Musk stake 'everything' on it?

The Twitter name does not make sense as the social media firm becomes a broader communications and financial services platform, Musk said

Major tech companies are no strangers to corporate rebranding - Google rebranded to Alphabet in 2015 while Facebook rebranded to Meta in 2021 as part of their respective corporate reorganisations.

But rarely have tech companies changed the brand name of consumer products they are known for, especially if it is one of the world's most iconic brands such as Twitter.

On July 24, Elon Musk, however, began the process of doing just that, a day after saying, “soon we shall bid adieu to the Twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds”

The tech billionaire, who acquired Twitter in a $44 billion deal in October 2022, renamed the social media platform as X, a letter Musk has been closely associated with since 1999.

As part of this rebranding, Musk replaced the company's iconic blue bird logo, called Larry Bird, with a fan-made logo, a stylised version of the alphabet X.

The same logo currently appears on the service's web app and the mobile web app, as well as on the company's corporate accounts including @twitter and on Elon Musk's personal account at the time of writing this article. Musk called this logo an "interim logo", which will be "refined over time".

That said, the bird logo is still visible on the service's iOS and Android apps while the Twitter branding appears on its sign-up page and the search box.

On July 24, Musk said in a post on Twitter (now X) that they will add "comprehensive communications and the ability to conduct your entire financial world" in the coming months. "The Twitter name does not make sense in that context, so we must bid adieu to the bird," he said.

Read: Twitter Rebrand: Elon Musk's X misses the spot in several ways

'Elon Musk is most likely Twitter killer'

Twitter's rebrand to X comes amid increased competition. Several technology companies and startups have been trying to capitalise on Twitter users looking to migrate to other platforms.

Earlier this month, Meta-owned Instagram launched a text-based app called Threads that clocked 100 million users in less than five days of its launch, making it the fastest-growing consumer product across the world.

The app, launched with a limited feature-set, however, witnessed a significant usage decline in subsequent days. Other players in the space include Mastodon, Bluesky, Post.news, Spill and T2, all of whom have gained moderate traction in recent months.

"Twitter’s rebrand is a reminder that Elon Musk, not Threads or any other app, is and has always been the most likely 'Twitter killer," said Jasmine Enberg, principal analyst at Insider Intelligence, a market research firm.

"It’s the end of an era, and a clear signal that the Twitter of the past 17 years is gone and not coming back. But the writing was on the wall: Musk has been vocal about transforming Twitter into platform X from the start, and Twitter was already a shell of its former self," Enberg added.

The letter X has been closely associated with Elon Musk since 1999.

Echoing similar sentiments, Mike Proulx, Vice President and Research Director at Forrester, a research and advisory firm, said the rebrand to X is an "extremely risky move", since it would mean that Musk is "essentially starting over while its competition is afoot".

"By changing Twitter app’s name, Elon Musk will have single-handedly wiped out over fifteen years of a brand name that has secured its place in our cultural lexicon," Proulx said.

"While Musk’s vision is to turn “X” into an “everything app,” this takes time, money, and people – three things that the company no longer has. Simply put, X’s runway is coming to an end," he said.

Read: Twitter turning into X is set to kill billions in brand value

The rebranding has been on the cards for a while, with Twitter ceasing to be an independent company after its merger with X Corp, a shell firm founded by Musk in April 2023. The Tesla chief had previously announced that the Twitter acquisition would be an “accelerant" for creating X, which he dubbed as an "everything app".

That said, the rebranding is likely the most visible change that the tech billionaire has made to the social media platform since he bought the company in 2022.

The move is also an indicator of how different the social media platform has become from the time of its purchase, thanks to the various product and policy changes Musk has introduced in the past year.

The changes include introducing paid verification, prohibiting third-party apps and introducing new API tiers for developers, paywalling many features that were previously available to consumers for free and shutting several others.

In terms of operations, Musk laid off nearly 80 percent of its workforce, emptied several offices, stopped vendor payments and rental payments among others, a measure that has attracted dozens of lawsuits against the company.

Read: How Elon Musk is reshaping Twitter

Still in negative cash flow

On July 15, Musk said in a post on Twitter (now X) that the company's cash flow is still negative, due to an approximate 50 percent drop in advertising revenue and a heavy debt load, indicating that the social media platform had not been able to achieve its goal of hitting cash flow positive in the quarter ending June 2023. Musk, however, didn't disclose the time period for the revenue drop.

Advertising revenues, which still account for a major part of the company's revenues, have taken a hit for the past year amid the continued slowdown in the digital advertising market and several major advertisers leaving the platform after Musk's takeover.

In May 2023, Musk tapped former NBCUniversal ad sales chief Linda Yaccarino as the firm's new CEO. While announcing the appointment, Musk said Yaccarino would focus on Twitter's (now X's) business operations, while he will be responsible for product design and new technology.

"Chaos and brand safety concerns continue to give mainstream advertisers pause while initial cautious optimism around “Twitter’s” new CEO Linda Yaccarino has waned," Proulx said.

The social media platform is, however, working on growing its subscription service Twitter Blue in an attempt to diversify its revenue streams.

X, the everything app

The letter X has been closely associated with most of Musk's ventures.

In 1999, Musk co-founded X.com, which was one of the world's first online banks. The company later merged with rival Confinity and the combined entity rebranded itself as the online payments company PayPal. Musk bought back the X.com domain name from PayPal in 2017, stating that it has "great sentimental value".

The letter is also present in Musk's rocket manufacturing company SpaceX while his electric vehicle firm Tesla has a sports-utility vehicle called the Model X. Earlier this week, the tech billionaire also launched an artificial intelligence company called xAI. Apart from this, one of Musk's sons is also called X Æ A-Xii Musk.

In October 2022, Musk said that buying Twitter was an "accelerant to creating X, the everything app," akin to so-called super-apps such as China's WeChat that combine several internet services within a single app.

On July 23, Yaccarino said on Twitter (now X) that they aim to create a "global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities, that will be centred in audio, video, messaging, payments, and banking" and will be powered by artificial intelligence.

"For years, fans and critics alike have pushed Twitter to dream bigger, to innovate faster, and to fulfill our great potential. X will be the platform that can deliver, well…everything," she said.

That said, the move could pose legal challenges for the social media firm in the future since many companies including Meta and Microsoft reportedly own intellectual property rights to the same letter.

Meta has a US trademark from 2019 that covers a blue-and-white letter "X" in connection to "online social networking services" and "social networking services in the fields of entertainment, gaming, and application development," according to a Reuters report.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has owned a trademark for X related to communications about its Xbox video game system since 2003, it said.