Elon Musk has officially rebranded the social media platform Twitter to X. The rebranding saw the platform substitute its recognizable bird logo with a simple X.
As part of the rebranding, Twitter’s URL has been changed to “x.com.” the domain name associated with Musk’s 1999-founded financial services startup that was sold to PayPal now redirects to Twitter.
X.com was an early online bank initially financed by Elon Musk and Greg Kouri, who funded Musk’s subsequent ventures, Tesla and SpaceX.
Musk’s relationship with the brand moniker ‘X’ dates back to 1999, when he founded the company. However, it could not become a stand-alone company and eventually merged with Paypal.
Musk used the letter X in the name of his space company, SpaceX, and several Tesla automobile models. The rebranding of Twitter signifies that, after three decades, the character is finally becoming an independent brand.
Musk established X Corp as Twitter’s parent company in March of this year, paving the way for Twitter’s rebranding. The rebranding is part of Musk’s plan to create a “super app” with multiple features, including financial services, on the social media platform.
Twitter introduced a new feature in April that allowed app users to access the cryptocurrency market and other financial market services from within the app.
Musk’s tenure as CEO of Twitter was controversial from the beginning. However, his intentions to convert Twitter into a financial platform had been in the works well before the takeover.
Musk reiterated in a recent interview that the primary motivation behind X’s rebranding was to create an “everything app,” a popular concept in China.
Social media applications in China, such as WeChat, are not only used for text and video conversations but also for bill payments, cab and restaurant reservations, and other financial transactions.
Musk stated that, if executed properly, X could become a popular platform for finance: banking, payments, and data, and over time, “half of the global financial system.”
Twitter’s rebranding received little support from the application’s users, who believe that abandoning the two-decade-long legacy for a new concept is not a good idea.
