I—and many other cheeky journalists, bloggers, and internet commentators—were quick to make illustrations of the Twitter logo with little ‘X’s for eyes, implying it’s dead, as soon as Elon Musk took over the platform. Perhaps Elon Musk thought we were suggesting a new brand identity for his increasingly right-wing and dangerous platform? Or maybe he just can’t give up on a bad idea.
This isn’t the first time Elon Musk has tried to reduce a brand to just “X” for the URL “X.com.” He actually tried to do it to PayPal as well after it bought his banking company, X.com. Fortunately, they had none of that, and PayPal is still a well-known and trusted brand. He purchased the rights to the “X.com” domain back from Paypal in 2017 and seemingly thinks he finally found a use for it: hitching it to a dying social network.
Is it time for “X.com” to fail again?
The Name is ‘X’ … Just ‘X’
screenshot via Twitter.com
You know, Elon Musk seems to really like the letter X. His company is X Corp, owned by X Holdings, he named his first company it X.com, he bought SpaceX, he has a Model X in his Tesla lineup, and he even tried to name his child X Æ A-12. Everyone’s got to have a hobby, right? Musk’s seems to be the letter ‘X.’
Right now, Twitter is replacing the bird logo with a new stylized ‘X’ seen above in a screenshot of a tweet. The goal, supposedly, is to brand Twitter as more than just a social network, but an “everything” site, for “audio, video, messaging, payments/banking” and powering it with AI. Fun fact: AI is where the Æ came from his son’s would-be name. Musk does also own X.AI, another AI-focused tech company. Perhaps he’s looking to somehow squeeze all these puzzle pieces together with the website formerly (and still) known as Twitter?
A branding shift of Twitter could cost Musk what little brand safety the company has left. “Twitter” was at least once the town square, a place for people to freely discuss matters without devolving into hate or violence. It hasn’t been that since Musk took over, but brand identities are sticky. It can take a while for people to see something differently. However, by changing the name of the company, Musk may have damaged the only reason Twitter still has any ad revenue: remaining brand loyalty. Musk might want to make ‘X’ an “Everything App,” but it’ll have a brand identity that’s only associated with extremist views. That’s not going to be helpful. Then again, I’m sure Musk won’t mind if we keep calling it “Twitter,” as he’s such a huge fan of deadnaming, after all.
Sources/References:
- Kyle Barr, Gizmodo
- Karissa Bell, Engedget
- Wes Davis, The Verge
- James Factora, Them
- Andrew Laurence, The Guardian
- Pauline Lockwood and Heather Chen, CNN
- Barbara Ortutay, AP News
- Barbara Ortutay, AP News via PBS Newshour
- Malcolm Owen, AppleInsider
- Charlie Warzel, The Atlantic