Twitter Rebrands to ‘X,’ Elon Musk Ditches Platform’s Iconic Bird Logo

Say goodbye to the little blue bird — Elon Musk has officially relaunched Twitter under the new name X.

Musk, 52, announced on Sunday, July 23, that the social media platform would be rebranded with a new title and logo. “Interim X logo goes live later today,” Musk revealed in a Sunday tweet.

Earlier that day, the business mogul — who took over Twitter in October 2022 after purchasing the company that April — teased that the design for the brand’s new logo was nearly complete, writing, “If a good enough X logo is posted tonight we’ll make [it] go live worldwide tomorrow.”

Musk also hinted at the logo’s design, tweeting, “If X is closest in style to anything, it should, of course, be Art Deco.”

The letter X holds great significance to Musk, as he launched the aerospace company SpaceX in 2002. “Not sure what subtle clues gave it [a]way, but I like the letter X,” the Tesla CEO captioned a picture of himself crossing his arms in an X shape.

In celebration of Twitter’s rebrand, the company illuminated its offices with the site’s brand new X design. “Our headquarters tonight,” Musk wrote alongside a photo of the brand’s San Francisco, California, headquarters on Sunday.

Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino shared a similar photo of the building, which she captioned, “Lights. Camera. X!”

Yaccarino, 59, called X “the future state of unlimited interactivity” in a series of Sunday tweets. She continued: “For years, fans and critics alike have pushed Twitter to dream bigger, to innovate faster, and to fulfill our great potential. X will do that and more. We’ve already started to see X take shape over the past 8 months through our rapid feature launches, but we’re just getting started.”

The rebrand announcement has been met with mixed reactions from fans. “I’m Xstatic for a new beginning,” one X user wrote in response to Yaccarino’s tweets. Another user, meanwhile, expressed their disappointment in the new updates by writing, “Elon Musk fails at making choices NOBODY wants!”

Others jumped at the chance to poke fun at Twitter’s new name, including Sesame Street. “The letter X will be holding a press conference later today,” the show’s official X account captioned a picture of a letter X puppet at a microphone.

Following Musk’s acquisition of Twitter last year, several celebs spoke out against the platform’s new rules and regulations, which included paying $7.99 to maintain a verified blue check mark.

“I deactivated my Twitter account today,” Gigi Hadid wrote via a November 2022 Instagram Story. “For a long time, but especially with its new leadership, it’s becoming more and more of a cesspool of hate & bigotry, and it’s not a place I want to be part of.”

Elton John, meanwhile, explained he was leaving Twitter the following month upon learning of Musk’s plans to grant “general amnesty” to suspended accounts.

“All my life I’ve tried to use music to bring people together. Yet it saddens me to see how misinformation is now being used to divide our world,” John, 76, tweeted at the time. “I’ve decided to no longer use Twitter, given their recent change in policy which will allow misinformation to flourish unchecked.”