Twitter officially ditches the blue bird as it rebrands as X
Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino has officially unveiled the new logo for Twitter: a white “X” on a black background.
The announcement came in a tweet by the CEO late on Sunday evening that showed the new logo beamed onto Twitter’s — or now X’s — head office in San Francisco.
In another message posted a short while before, Yaccarino shared the logo, saying: “X is here! Let’s do this.” However, company owner Elon Musk had already posted the logo on Saturday, so the official unveiling offered little surprise.
According to Musk, he wants people to start referring to the app as X, not Twitter. But as popular tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee said in response to the new name: “Old habits die hard.”
Earlier on Sunday, Yaccarino tweeted that she and Musk are “looking forward to working with our teams and every single one of our partners to bring X to the world.”
Her comments followed a series of posts from Musk on Saturday night that said big changes on the platform were imminent, including a rebrand to banish Twitter’s famous bird in favor of a new X logo. Musk changed the name of the business from Twitter Inc. to X Corp. in March, and on Saturday tweeted: “Soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds.”
But even though the new X logo has been announced, there’s clearly still some work to do regarding the blue bird, as at the time of writing it continues to show on the mobile app and in the corner of embedded tweets, as you can see above.
Tweeting earlier on Sunday, Yaccarino said: “It’s an exceptionally rare thing — in life or in business — that you get a second chance to make another big impression. Twitter made one massive impression and changed the way we communicate. Now, X will go further, transforming the global town square.”
The CEO, whom Musk hired in May, 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 … There’s absolutely no limit to this transformation. X will be the platform that can deliver, well….everything. @elonmusk and I are looking forward to working with our teams and every single one of our partners to bring X to the world.”
Musk, who also runs SpaceX and Tesla, wants to transform Twitter into a so-called “super-app” that will provide a range of services under one roof, similar to China’s WeChat. Services could include tweeting, messaging, banking, payments, meal delivery, ridesharing, shopping, and so on.
The plan to ditch Twitter’s iconic bird logo and transform the app into something far beyond a microblogging platform follows other big changes at the company since Musk acquired it in October for $44 billion. One of the new owner’s first moves was to slash the workforce by more than half before overhauling the blue-check verification system by offering it to anyone that pays for Twitter Blue, its premium tier, instead of only to notable figures like politicians and celebrities. Musk also relaxed moderation rules on the platform and allowed many previously banned accounts to return to the service.
The platform is currently trying to fend off competition from Threads, a Twitter-like app launched earlier this month by Meta that picked up more than 100 million users in its first five days of availability, setting a new growth record in the process.
This article has been updated to reflect the official unveiling of the new logo
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