Elon Musk Renames Twitter to 'X' With a Head-Scratching New Icon

In his latest questionable move that's already a source of aggravation to longtime users, Elon Musk has officially renamed Twitter to “X.”

The name change, which the 52-year-old has been threatening since before he even bought the company, became a reality on Sunday when he announced his plan to rebrand the imperiled social media site.

After Musk purchased Twitter last year for $44 billion, advertisers have abandoned ship at an unprecedented rate. Users have likewise been hit with a series of radical changes; from pay-to-play blue checkmarks to, most recently, the number of posts they can view in a day. Adding to the platform's woes, this summer Meta’s Threads positioned itself as a “Twitter Killer” that might replace the app once and for all.

Musk has previously described his plans for “X” as an “everything app” that would include social media, instant messaging and payment services.

“And soon we shall bid adieu to the Twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds,” the self-styled poet posted to his account on Sunday.

“It should have been done a long time ago,” Musk added during an audio livestream on Sunday morning. “Sorry it took so long.”

Naturally, the tech entrepreneur didn’t actually notify employees until a few hours after the livestream, when he sent an email confirming that the company was in fact rebranding. "This is my last message from a Twitter email,” Musk concluded the announcement, adding a saluting emoji.

About 24 hours later, Twitter—sorry, X users were somewhat galled to find that their beloved blue bird icon (nicknamed Larry after basketball legend Larry Bird) was no more. Instead, a dubiously creative "X" is now the logo for the once beloved app.

Getting straight to the heart of the matter was an "X" user named Sai. “So now instead of Twitter videos it would be X videos,” they quipped, referencing the notorious adult entertainment website.

Indeed, the comparison between Twitter’s new name was lost on approximately no one. Within a few hours of Sunday’s announcement, #xvideos was trending on X.

Some users are so perplexed, they've considered switching platforms. “Since Twitter is rebranding to ‘X,’ I'm gonna start posting my videos on X Videos now," wrote another user.

And not surprising, as with most of Musk's impulsive decisions, others pointed out the inherent flaws with the rebranding. As it turns out, the new ‘X’ icon isn't intellectual property and doesn’t actually belong to anyone—certainly not Musk.

“The new Twitter X logo is the Unicode character for the letter X,” user Kay Challis wrote shortly after the new logo was unveiled on Monday morning, in a since-removed tweet. “As such, it is in the public domain and cannot be copyrighted. Twitter has gone from a logo it owns to one that it doesn’t, and can’t, own."

By early Monday afternoon, #RIPTwitter was a top trending subject on the site. For users, the hashtag seemed to apply both to the rebranding, as well as the overall state of the once-great social media platform.

“Welcome to X,” another critic wrote. “The only social media company to limit its users ability to read or post social media.”

And there may even be worse news for Musk on the horizon. In the wake of X’s shakeup, TikTok announced that the platform is introducing text posts.

“With text posts, we’re expanding the boundaries of content creation for everyone on TikTok, giving the written creativity we’ve seen in comments, captions, and videos a dedicated space to shine,” the company announced in a statement.

TikTok is hoping to capitalize on the X-odus and create an all-in-one video and text platform to keep users glued to the app. Ironically, this puts them ahead of executing the very plan Elon Musk originally had for the app formerly known as Twitter.

Better luck neXt time, Elon.