Elon Musk kills the Twitter brand: Welcome to the age of X

Overnight, the iconic blue bird icon was removed from the desktop version of Twitter and replaced by a stark, monochromatic letter X. The same change will shortly be made on the mobile version, the company confirmed.

The change is also said to signal an evolution for the brand beyond social media. “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,” tweeted Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino — or rather “x’ed” Yaccarino as we must learn to say.

Why we care. For users of X, the rebranding will indeed require sweeping changes to familiar vocabulary. People will “x” rather “tweet.” Presumably, on the mobile device, we will now see a list of users who recently “x’ed.” TweetDeck will surely become XDeck, although that has yet to be confirmed.

For marketers and advertisers, the change will underline questions already raised about brand safety. Last year, many sources noted a significant rise in hate speech on the platform. While Meta’s Zuckerberg has spoken about X competitor Threads as being “friendly,” the aesthetic of X inevitably comes across as minimalist, even brutalist — for example when the new logo is projected on the exterior of their headquarters like a sinister version of the Bat-signal.

Musk has a long history with the letter X. He’s clearly fond of it; it remains to be seen whether a wider audience will find the name and logo relatable.