Twitter's 'X' Rebrand Is Elon Musk's Most Desperate Gimmick Yet (2024)

Y Tho?

Repainting the hull of the Titanic is bound to be as effective as rearranging the deck chairs on it

Elon Musk has pulled some lousy marketing stunts in his time, but this one reeks of desperation.

As Twitter‘s owner has hinted in recent months — and announced more formally on Saturday — the social platform will rebrand as “X,” ditching the company’s original name and iconic bird logo as it (theoretically) adds features including banking and shopping services. The idea, as Musk has outlined before, is to create an “everything app,” with all possible conveniences at users’ fingertips. His handpicked successor as CEO, Linda Yaccarino, is leading the hype for X, posting word salad about how it will be “the future state of unlimited interactivity,” powered by artificial intelligence.

X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities. Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine.

— Linda Yaccarino (@lindayaX) July 23, 2023

These are big, vague promises, and it would be surprising if Twitter — sorry, X — could deliver on them with the skeleton crew remaining in the wake of mass layoffs, meanwhile dodging rent payments for office space and handling lawsuits alleging failure to pay half a billion dollars in severance packages. So far, the changes have been purely cosmetic: a Unicode “X” symbol to replace the Twitter bird design on the site, plus an updated sign, and renamed conference rooms at San Francisco headquarters, including “eXposure” and “s3Xy.” As a corny Elon gimmick, this barely surpasses adding the Doge meme to the homepage for a couple of days to temporarily boost the near-worthless cryptocurrency Dogecoin, which Twitter did in April. But Musk has been trumpeting the switch all the same, even staking the ludicrous claim that what we’ve long called “a tweet” shall hereafter be referred to as “an X.” Good luck with that!

An X

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 23, 2023

Twitter’s value has plummeted by two-thirds since Musk bought it for $44 billion last year, and he appears determined to jettison some of the most important assets it has left: the name and image. Public relations specialists are calling the move “brand suicide,” and it’s not as if folding Facebook into Meta or Google into Alphabet convinced the public to use those names for the respective tech giants. Likewise, “Twitter” is too deeply embedded in the culture — and that’s what people will continue to call it.

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Of course, Musk’s vision isn’t based on the reality of the website he operates. It’s the meaningless resurrection of X.com, an online bank startup he and three partners founded in 1999. (The URL, which Musk repurchased in 2017, now redirects to Twitter, not that anyone will navigate to their feed that way.) The original X.com quickly merged with a chief rival, Cofinity, which had a money transfer system called PayPal. In late 2000, the board of the combined company voted to oust Musk as CEO in favor of Cofinity co-founder Peter Thiel. With Musk gone, leadership dropped all X.com branding and banking services, rebranding as PayPal, for the network that had emerged as its primary business.

Ever since, Musk has stamped anything and everything with an “X” — SpaceX, the Tesla Model X, his son X Æ A-12 — in a seeming attempt to merge an empire under the banner of a single letter. Turning Twitter into X is less about offering a new and improved experience (which he can’t) and more in line with a pattern of asserting his role as an innovator (see: Tesla, which he could legally claim to have “cofounded” only after settling a lawsuit brought by one of the original founders). It’s a clumsy stab at taking credit for what Twitter was before he acquired it.

Speaking of: Musk has barely kept the place operational as is. Casual users are restricted as “spam,” the company is in legal trouble for not removing hate speech, major livestream events are glitch-filled disasters, the ability to privately message is steadily eroding, tweets disappear for no reason, and during any given outage, you might be arbitrarily limited to viewing just a few hundred posts per day. If the site can’t even function as a public forum for breaking news and shitposts, how on earth is it supposed to serve as the totally integrated nexus of digital life? Who the hell would entrust their bank account info to an app so riddled with bots and scams, not to mention a guy once fined $20 million by the SEC in a fraud settlement? And why are we getting the hard sell on a product that, practically speaking, doesn’t exist?

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X is here! Let’s do this. pic.twitter.com/1VqEPlLchj

— Linda Yaccarino (@lindayaX) July 24, 2023

Again, it would be shocking if Musk, Yaccarino, and the last engineers in their employ added a fraction of the capability they’re envisioning. By other indications — like forgetting to secure permission from their landlord to remove the Twitter HQ sign, resulting in a visit from the police, or potentially falling ass-backwards into “X” trademark disputes with a Japanese rock band and rival Meta — they are ill-prepared for any radical pivot or substantial growth. Repainting the hull of the Titanic is bound to be as effective as rearranging the deck chairs on it.

On the other hand, what else can Musk do? He ran out of fresh ideas for Twitter months ago. So he’s returned to his oldest pitch: a symbol that he hopes is striking and cool enough to convince the world of his genius. Problem is, you can’t succeed on X factor alone.

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Twitter's 'X' Rebrand Is Elon Musk's Most Desperate Gimmick Yet (2024)

FAQs

Was rebranding Twitter a good idea? ›

Was Twitter's Rebrand a Success? While the long-term effects of the Twitter/X rebrand have yet to be seen, so far, it has cost the company billions, been roundly criticised by experts and proven unpopular with users.

Was the X-rebrand successful? ›

By May 8, the Index score had risen to -0.9, the highest since January 2022. Despite Musk's $44 billion investment and the rebranding to X, our poll indicates that a year later, half of Americans still refer to the platform as Twitter (49%), a figure that rises to 55% among daily X users.

Why did Twitter rebrand fail? ›

Users questioned the need for the new name and felt disconnected from the platform they had grown accustomed to. Moreover, the vague messaging surrounding the rebrand left many scratching their heads, failing to communicate a clear value proposition.

Why was Twitter renamed to X? ›

The rebrand was announced last summer to, as Musk posted then, both “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.

What is a negative effect of rebranding? ›

But what are the disadvantages of rebranding? Rebranding can also lead to significant risks such as alienating existing customers, incurring high costs, and potentially diluting the brand's original message or values.

Is rebranding good or bad? ›

In some cases, that can be a beneficial thing, but it usually has to be for a very good reason. If a company rebrands itself because of the ever-shifting whims of the head authority, it's probably not a great idea. Your brand is an icon. It is how people have grown to know your business.

Do people like the change from Twitter to X? ›

People are very attached to the blue bird. They feel the rebrand was unnecessary, and stripped Twitter of its personality. It looks like most folks see this as more of an Elon Musk ego-trip than something that's actually helpful for Twitter users.

Is X Twitter successful? ›

2: The U.S. has more X users than any other country.

With 109.2 million active users (nearly a third of the population), X is one of the most popular media platforms in America. Japan and India are the platform's second and third biggest users as of April 2024, with 69.3 and 25.5 million users, respectively.

Does anyone use X anymore? ›

“App intelligence provider Sensor Tower, estimated that X's average daily active users worldwide grew 2% from July to August 2024 [while] website traffic provider Similarweb reported that X is seeing daily and weekly fluctuations in engagement that are within the normal range across the web and mobile apps.”

How many people left Twitter after rebranding? ›

The truth is that Twitter lost around 32 million users since the takeover but still has managed to generate $4.4 billion in 2022. Let's dive in to what you need to know about Twitter after the X rebranding.

Why did everyone quit Twitter? ›

But its future looks more turbulent than at any point since Elon Musk took over three weeks ago, as a huge number of workers decided to quit rather than agree to the billionaire's loyalty pledge, which involved committing to a “hard core” work routine to grow the platform.

Why Twitter is losing popularity? ›

In its latest social network usage forecast, Insider Intelligence expects monthly Twitter users worldwide to drop nearly 4% in 2023 and another 5% in 2024. Our base assumption for this forecast is that technical issues and offensive content will drive away users.

How much is X worth now? ›

Fidelity, which owns a stake in X Holdings, said in a disclosure obtained by Axios that it had marked down the value of its shares by 71.5% since Musk's purchase. Musk acquired Twitter for $44bn in October 2022 and renamed the platform X in July 2023. Fidelity's estimate would place the value of X at about $12.5bn.

What is Twitter X used for? ›

X is a service for friends, family, and coworkers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent messages. People post posts, which may contain photos, videos, links, and text. These messages are posted to your profile, sent to your followers, and are searchable on X search.

What is Twitter called now in 2024? ›

On May 17, 2024, the URL was officially changed from twitter.com to x.com. On July 17, 2024, Musk posted that the headquarters of X would be moved from San Francisco to Austin, Texas.

Is Twitter good for branding? ›

By being active on Twitter, you get to keep an eye on your biggest competitors and see what they're up to. Then, you can use this information to come up with something original and unique for your brand. As a result, you're staying competitive and making sure you don't just blend in with the rest.

What was the original idea for Twitter and why did it change? ›

Twitter actually changed from what we thought it was in the beginning, which we described as status updates and a social utility. It is that, in part, but the insight we eventually came to was Twitter was really more of an information network than it is a social network.

Is rebranding an effective strategy? ›

A rebranding is risky but can lead to great results

But when there's an explicit strategy behind your rebranding — to reach new customers, stand out in a sea of sameness, reflect your brand's growth, or modernize in changing times — it can lead to tremendous results.

What changes did Musk want to make to Twitter? ›

Elon Musk initiated the acquisition of Twitter, Inc. on April 14, 2022, and completed it on October 28, 2022. His goal was to transform Twitter into X, an all-encompassing app inspired by WeChat.

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