“Bye Bye Birdie” – The Rebrand of Twitter to “X”

Twitter has been a major social media platform for decades; Why did Elon Musk change everything we know about the iconic Twitter bird?

In the realm of technology, few figures have captivated the world’s imagination as much as Elon Musk. The visionary entrepreneur and CEO of companies like Tesla and SpaceX consistently surprise the public with innovative ideas and daring endeavors. Recently, Musk raised eyebrows once again by changing the name of one of the most popular social media platforms, Twitter, to simply “X.” Here’s a deep dive into Musk’s reasoning:

First and foremost, Elon Musk has sought to curb censorship and constraints on freedom of speech within online platforms from the get-go. His aim in taking over Twitter was to create an online space of free speech and expand beyond the limitations that he saw on Twitter.

In a recent post, Musk stated, “Twitter was acquired by X Corp both to ensure freedom of speech and as an accelerant for X, the everything app. This is not simply a company renaming itself, but doing the same thing”. Although the app was super successful in its run, the increasing allegations of wrongful censorship drove Musk to take over and rebrand the platform entirely.

Since he seems to have an affinity for “X”, it’s understandable he would call his proposed “everything app” X. A simple x-splanation for the rebranding from Twitter to X is that Elon Musk just loves the letter X. One of his early Tesla Models was called the Model X, his space exploration program is called SpaceX, and even PayPal was originally X.com before he sold the company. His daughter’s name too, “x æ a-12,” is pronounced as “X.”

Secondly, speaking of everything apps, the rebranding is an effort to prepare X users for new things to come. There are talks of Musk moving forward with adding features like shopping and subscriptions, which would not only bring in more revenue for the company and others affiliated with it, but would put the company ahead of the monetization curve in terms of other social media apps.
Rebranding of Twitter to “X” may just be Musk’s way of bringing Twitter into the same brand family as his other companies. One of the important aspects of good branding is consistency of brand names under a corporate umbrella. It also lets us know that Musk has no immediate plans on stepping down as the head of X, as he is beginning to make the company one of his own.