Musk risks even more damage to Twitter’s business as the messaging app changes name to X

Elon
Musk
has
long
been
enamored
of
the
letter
X.

Now,
he’s

killing
off
the
Twitter
brand
and
the
iconic
blue
bird
in
favor
of
X
as
part
of
an
effort
to
turn
his
$44
billion
acquisition
into
something
that’s
genuinely
his.

related
investing
news

3
hours
ago

Musk’s
vision
for
X
is
something
akin
to
China’s
WeChat,
a
super
app
that
people
can
use
for
entertainment
and
buying
goods
and
services
online,
in
addition
to
posting
updates
and
messaging
their
friends.
But
the
rebrand
comes
after
months
of
erratic
behavior
by
the
world’s
richest
person
turned
off
users
and

pushed
away
advertisers,
leaving
Twitter
in
a
troubled
financial
position
and
increasingly
vulnerable
to
competition.

Killing
an
iconic
internet
brand
is
“extremely
risky”
at
a
time
when
rival
apps
such
as
the
new

Instagram
Threads
and
smaller
upstarts
such
as

Bluesky
are
luring
users,
said
Mike
Proulx,
an
analyst
at
Forrester.

Musk
has
“singlehandedly
wiped
out
over
fifteen
years
of
a
brand
name
that
has
secured
its
place
in
our
cultural
lexicon,”
Proulx
said
in
an
email.

A
company
spokesperson
didn’t
provide
a
comment
for
this
story.

It’s
not
entirely
a
surprising
move.
Musk
had
already
converted
Twitter’s
corporate
name
to
X
Corp,
which
itself
is
a
subsidiary
of
X
Holding
Corp,
as
revealed
in
an
April

court
filing.
Musk

said
last
October,
just
prior
to
buying
Twitter,
that
he
viewed
the
$44
billion
deal
as
“an
accelerant
to
creating
X,
the
everything
app.”

The
letter
X
features
prominently
in
the
name
of
Musk’s
rocket
company,
SpaceX.
And
over
two
decades
ago,
X.com
was
the
name
of
Musk’s
payments
company
that
eventually
became
PayPal
through
a
merger
with
a
rival
at
the
time.

Name
changes
have
become
fairly
commonplace
among
storied
web
companies.
Facebook
became


Meta
in

late
2021,
and
Google
adopted
the


Alphabet
moniker

six
years
earlier.
However,
in
those
cases
the
newly
named
parent
companies
kept
the
branding
of
their
core
services,
so
Facebook
users
and
Google
searchers
could
keep
doing
their
thing
without
disruption.

Musk
appears
to
be
betting
he
can
get
rid
of
Twitter
altogether.
Over
the
weekend,
he
introduced
the
new
X
logo
and
said
in
a
tweet
that
“soon
we
shall
bid
adieu
to
the
twitter
brand
and,
gradually,
all
the
birds.”

Linda
Yaccarino,
who
Musk
hired
as
CEO
in
May,
said
in
an

email
to
employees
Monday
that
the
company
will
“continue
to
delight
our
entire
community
with
new
experiences
in
audio,
video,
messaging,
payments,
banking
–
creating
a
global
marketplace
for
ideas,
goods,
services,
and
opportunities.”

Succeeding
in
that
mission
is
easier
said
than
done.

Musk’s
desire
to
turn
X
into
a
super
app
requires
“time,
money
and
people,”
which
Twitter
“no
longer
has,”
said
Proulx.
Earlier
this
month,
Musk

said
that
Twitter
has
suffered
a
50%
drop
in
advertising
revenue
and
that
it
needs
“to
reach
positive
cash
flow
before
we
have
the
luxury
of
anything
else.”
 

Some
advertisers
had
grown
concerned
about
promoting
their
products
on
Twitter
because
of
reports
showing
a
rise
of
hate
speech
and
racist
and
offensive
comments
on
the
platform
as

documented
by
multiple
civil
rights
groups
and
researchers.

Musk
has
tried
to
offset
some
decline
in
advertising
with
a
premium
subscription
service.
But
at
$8
a
month,
the
company
would
need
tens
of
millions
of
subscribers
to
make
up
for
the
losses.

Those
advertisers
remaining
on
the
platform
now
have
to
adopt
a
new
lingo.
People
and
businesses
around
the
world
know
Twitter
messages
as
“tweets.”
Like
Kleenex,
Twitter
was
able
to
develop
a
recognizable
brand
that
was
instantly
familiar
with
consumers,
a
feat
that
any
corporate
marketing
team
would
celebrate.

Ralph
Schackart,
an
analyst
at
William
Blair,
told
CNBC
last
week
that
his
team
of
analysts
“didn’t
pick
anything
up”
from
advertisers
they
polled
as
part
of
a
recent

survey
on
the
digital
advertising
market
that
would
indicate
that
these
businesses
had
upped
their
spending
on
Twitter.
Meanwhile,
there
are
signs
that
the
overall
digital
ad
market
could
be
improving,
according
to
the
William
Blair
survey.

Insider
Intelligence
analyst
Jasmine
Enberg
said
in
an
emailed
statement
that
the
name
change
marks
“a
gloomy
day
for
many
Twitter
users
and
advertisers”
and
a
“clear
signal
that
the
Twitter
of
the
past
17
years
is
gone
and
not
coming
back.”

“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,'”
Enberg
wrote.

WATCH:

Elon
Musk
wouldn’t
be
who
he
is
without
‘demon
mode’
and
his
drive,
says
biographer
Isaacson