Elon Musk’s Twitter rebrand is off to a rocky start

Elon Musk’s rebranding of Twitter is off to a rocky start.

On Sunday, the eccentric billionaire announced the rebrand of the company formerly known as Twitter — which he purchased in October for $44 billion — to X. But the switch has been caught up in more hurdles for Musk and the changing platform. 

Musk and his social media company are already facing potential legal challenges and user criticism over the new branding. 

The company formerly known as Twitter is not the first tech giant to move on from an iconic name. Google rebranded its parent company name to Alphabet in 2015, making Google one of its subsidiaries under the umbrella name. In a similar move in 2021, Facebook rebranded its parent company to name Meta. 

Musk also renamed Twitter’s parent company to X Corp. earlier this year.

But Musk’s latest change is different — while Meta and Alphabet only renamed their parent companies, Musk is changing Twitter’s iconic name and branding at the product level.

Musk has directed users to call posts on the platform “x’s” instead of tweets, raising another set of threats to the value behind the brand image. 

“It’s a risky move getting rid of the iconic Twitter birdie logo,” said Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives, adding that advertisers make take a “wait-and-see approach.”

Ives predicted a $2 billion to $5 billion loss in value from the change; analysts who spoke to Bloomberg News predicted the change would wipe out anywhere from $4 billion to $20 billion. The company is already facing struggles with advertisers after Musk’s takeover and subsequent changes to content moderation and verification systems. 

At the same time, the rebrand is part of Musk’s long term plan to turn the company into his “everything app.” That gamble, Ives said, may pay off in the end. 

X rebrand mocked online

The initial changes to the platform are all seemingly surface-level rebranding, but were marred with inconsistencies.

At the top of the page on the web browser version of the platform, users see the X brand logo. But as of Tuesday afternoon, the platform’s staple birdhouse icon — which takes users to their “home” feed — remained below the new X logo.

The platform’s mobile app is also still called Twitter and features the iconic blue bird logo

The shift spurred criticism and mockery online, including on Musk’s rebranded platform.

In one post, a user compared the Twitter logo to the “Barbie” movie and the X logo to “Oppenheimer,” while others likened the logo to one that would appear on adult content. 

The company’s brand change faced real world roadblock, too.

San Francisco police interrupted the changing of the Twitter sign outside the company’s headquarters Monday, leaving it with just a remaining “ER” on the side of the building, The Verge reported. 

Who owns the ‘X’ trademark?

Musk’s plans to rebrand the company as X may also be fraught with legal hurdles. 

Other companies, including tech giants Meta and Microsoft, already have intellectual property rights to the letter Musk is rebranding Twitter under, Reuters reported. 

Trademark attorney Josh Gerben told Reuters he counted nearly 900 active U.S. trademark registrations that already cover X across a wide range of industries. That leaves Twitter subject to lawsuits from others who claim ownership. 

Gerben told Reuters that Meta and Microsoft likely wouldn’t sue Musk’s company unless they felt threatened that it encroached on brand equity they built in the letter X. 

Robert Brauneis, a professor and co-director of the Intellectual Property Law Program at George Washington University Law School, said it’s “quite possible” an existing company will threaten to sue.

However, Brauneis said he hasn’t seen anything likely to lead a court to stop the rollout of X “dead in its tracks.” 

Rather, the company may have to face litigation as it continues the transition. And based on its size, Brauneis said he suspects Musk’s company could “afford to pay whatever it would take to make the other ones go away.” 

What is next for X?

While X has only made superficial changes to its platform so far, company CEO Linda Yaccarino said the new app will expand into a wide range of services.

X will be “centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking,” Yaccarino posted. 

“There’s absolutely no limit to this transformation. X will be the platform that can deliver, well….everything,” she added, though she did not lay out a timeline nor specifics.

Ives said the “longer term vision” for X “makes sense,” but the execution “is going to be highly scrutinized.” 

“He’s trying to build a super app. He needed to do something aggressive, and he accomplished it,” Ives said.