Twitter is now called X, and it’s been a messy rebrand. We’re here to catch you up on why the rebrand happened and what it means.
Twitter is now called X, and it’s causing some commotion. Since launching 17 years ago (nearly to the date at the time of writing), Twitter has been adorned with a blue bird. Now, it’s a rather cryptic X brought on by the new owner of the social media platform, Elon Musk.
How did we get here? We’ve rounded up the order of events that took place leading to Twitter’s massive rebrand to X, as well as how that relates to Elon Musk’s entrepreneurial history and the legal troubles that could stem from the new name.Why is Twitter called X now?
On July 22, 2023, Twitter suddenly rebranded to X. According to Elon Musk, the now-owner of Twitter/X, the name change was meant to align with it being “the everything app.” Musk says, “This is not simply a company renaming itself but doing the same thing.”
What does that look like? According to Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino, “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.” That’s a big promise, but it doesn’t look like much has changed about the social media platform yet.
For now, both X.com and twitter.com lead to the same place: the website formerly (and colloquially) known as Twitter. It now shows an X logo instead of the Twitter bird, and the mobile apps for Twitter show the same new logo, as well. Although the rebrand may not seem like a big deal, it has brought on a string of controversies.
The prevalent one is a giant X logo that now adorns the top of the company’s headquarters.
