Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, announced on Sunday that the social media network would abandon its bird emblem, be rebranded as X, and move fast into payments, banking, and commerce.
According to the design website Creative Bloq, Twitter, which was created in 2006, gets its name from the sound of birds chattering, and it has employed avian branding since its early days, when the firm purchased a stock symbol of a light blue bird for $15.
Late Sunday night, Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino tweeted a photo of the company’s new logo, a white X on a black backdrop, with the caption “X is here! Let’s get started.”
Musk also changed his profile image to the company’s new logo, which he described as “minimalist art deco,” and his Twitter bio to “X.com,” which currently redirects to twitter.com late Sunday night.
Musk has previously stated, “If a good enough X logo is posted tonight, we’ll make (it) go live worldwide tomorrow.” Musk also tweeted that under the new name, a post will be referred to as “an X.” But of 06:30 GMT Monday, the updates were not apparent on the website.
Musk had already designated Twitter’s parent business as the X Corporation, and had previously stated that his acquisition of the social media behemoth was “an accelerant to creating X, the everything app” — a reference to the X.com company he created in 1999, a later version of which went on to become payments giant PayPal.
Such an app may still serve as a social media platform while also incorporating texting and mobile payments. “Powered by AI, X will connect us in ways we’re only just beginning to imagine,” Yaccarino said earlier on Sunday.
Yaccarino, an NBC Universal advertising sales executive who Musk hired as Twitter’s CEO last month, said the social media company was on the verge of expanding its reach.
“X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centred in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities,” Yaccarino tweeted.
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