Twitter re-brands as “X” and bids adieu to the famous blue bird

Twitter’s owner Elon Musk recently changed the social media platform’s logo and brand image.

The new logo entails a white X on a black background – it is now live on both desktop and mobile.

The app has officially rebranded as “X”, with the name “Twitter” now seemingly a thing of the past. “Tweets” will also be replaced, and posts will now be called “x’s” instead.

It follows the emergence of Threads, a new social media app by Meta which seeks to rival the popular social media network.

Amidst mixed reactions to the rebrand, Mr Musk posted a clip of the new X branding projected onto the side of Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco.

Twitter changed the way we communicate… [but] X will go further, transforming the global town square

–Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X Corp.

After changing the name of the business to X Corp, he said that the replacement “should have been done a long time ago”.

The app’s new Chief Executive, Linda Yaccarino, wrote that the rebrand was an exciting opportunity. She said that Twitter had “changed the way we communicate” and added that “X will go further, transforming the global town square.”

Since he bought the rights to Twitter in April last year, Mr Musk made public that he wanted to make an “everything app”, one that would transform the social media network completely. Such apps are highly prominent in Asia, with the likes of India’s PayTM and Indonesia’s GoJek being a vital part of people’s everyday lives. Of them all, China’s WeChat is the largest, boasting an estimated 1.29 billion users.

Naturally, questions have been asked about the rapid rebrand, as, according to business commentator Justin Urquhart Stewart, Twitter is known for its “loyal and ageing base”.

Jake Moore, a Global Cybersecurity Adviser at ESET, also said that the rebrand could encourage phishing, as cybercriminals can “easily prey” on the new URL. The rebrand sees Mr Musk take his fascination with the letter X to new heights – something that dates back as far as 1999.