Twitter is dead, long live X! This was strongly suggested by Elon Musk in a tweet posted on Saturday July 22, 2023 and which the new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, confirmed on Monday July 24, also via a tweet.
“We will soon say goodbye to the Twitter brand and, gradually, to all the birds”, first sent the tycoon to the social network, which he has owned for several months. The new logo will be an “X”, with his tweet revealing a user’s video showing the current logo, the blue bird, replaced with a flashing X.
“If a good enough X logo is posted tonight, we’ll upload it worldwide tomorrow”, added Elon Musk. In response to a user who asked if Twitter would be accessible from x.com, the multi-billionaire replied: “Of course.” Indeed, if you type x.com in your search engine, you are redirected to… Twitter.
A WeChat-style social network
X.com is not unknown to Elon Musk, when it comes to the name and website of the online bank founded by the businessman, which later became the online payment service PayPal.
The Tesla and SpaceX boss bought Twitter last year for $44 billion and changed the company’s name to X Corp in April. On several occasions, he has expressed his desire to transform the social network into a Chinese WeChat imitation, a plural application which notably integrates financial services. The goal would be to bring all services together in one place: audio, video, messaging, online banking, etc.
This name change is a new step for the network, which has been going through a very complicated phase since its takeover. Elon Musk has laid off about half of the staff, advertising revenues have fallen by half, free certification has disappeared… But the competition intends to take advantage of this slack. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, notably launched Threads, an equivalent that comes to hunt the blue bird in the sky.
Time is running out for Twitter as the microblogging site has suffered a real financial haemorrhage with the flight of many advertisers, disgusted by the brutal practices of Elon Musk. He released the reins on June 5 in favor of Linda Yaccarino, former advertising director of the NBC Universal group and now general manager of the social platform.
The latter has put a layer on X on the network, confirming the choice of its big boss. Fly little blue bird, fly!