Musk says Twitter changing brand, eliminating ‘all the birds’

In this April 26, 2017, photo is a Twitter app icon on a mobile phone in Philadelphia.
Matt Rourke/Associated Press
In this April 26, 2017, photo is a Twitter app icon on a mobile phone in Philadelphia.

Twitter owner Elon Musk said early Sunday that the social media platform would soon change its brand to incorporate an “X” in the logo and to eliminate all “all the birds.”

“[S]oon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds,” Musk tweeted

“If a good enough X logo is posted tonight, we’ll make go live worldwide tomorrow,” he added in a subsequent post.

Musk posted several other references to “X,” including an image of a white Twitter bird against a grainy black background, writing, “Like this but x.”

“To embody the imperfections in us all that make us unique,” he replied to the tweet.

Musk also pinned a tweet of a three-second video of a flashing X. 

And he tweeted “Paint It Black” before creating a poll for users to vote on whether to “change default platform color to black.”

Musk has made a series of changes to Twitter since buying it last year for $44 billion. 

Musk, who owns SpaceX and Tesla, changed the name from “Twitter, Inc.” to “X Corp.”

Many of Musk’s moves have proven controversial. This past week, Twitter announced it would limit the number of direct messages a user can send in an attempt to limit spam. Some have criticized the move, however, for apparently seeking to promote its paid service, Twitter Blue. 

The policy change also comes weeks after Twitter decided to limit the number of posts non-paying users can see each day.  

Musk also recently announced his newest venture into the artificial intelligence space, which he calls xAI.

And he has reportedly expressed interest in creating an app, called, “X,” which he has described as “the everything app,” modeled on China’s WeChat. 

“Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app,” Musk tweeted in October 2022. “Twitter probably accelerates X by 3 to 5 years, but I could be wrong.”

Musk’s latest tweets come after Meta earlier this month launched Threads as an alternative to Twitter. Approximately 100 million people reportedly signed up for the Threads app in the first five days of its launch.

–Updated at 8:37 a.m.

Tags Elon Musk Twitter

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