Elon Musk announces change to Twitter logo

Twitter owner Elon Musk said Sunday that he was changing the social media brand's logo to an 'X' and doing away with the platform's iconic bird symbol.

The announcement began with a series of cryptic tweets from Musk about the letter 'X,' including a message which shows off a shimmering 'X' logo. He eventually tweeted that the company "shall bid adieu to the Twitter brand, and, gradually, all the birds."

The change could come as soon as Monday, Musk said, and is the latest large alteration in the company since Musk purchased the platform for $44 billion in 2022. The 'X' initiative is unsurprising, as Musk has long shown an obsession with the letter and changed the name of Twitter's parent company to X Corp. this past March. The billionaire magnate tweeted last year that his purchasing of Twitter was "an accelerant to creating X, the everything app," as part of an effort to compete with Mark Zuckerberg's Meta platform.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The feud between Musk and Zuckerberg has been heating up in recent months, with the latter recently unveiling a direct competitor to Twitter, a messaging app called Threads that is integrated into the Meta-owned Instagram. The two billionaires have even challenged each other to a fight, though it is unclear how serious either of them is.

However, the changing of the logo seems to directly go against the company's current beliefs. The website's branding page currently says that Twitter's bird logo "is our most recognizable asset. That's why we're so protective of it."

The change will also likely not be welcomed on Twitter itself, Allen Adamson, co-founder of marketing consultancy Metaforce, told The Associated Press. Users of the platform "won't get it," Adamson added. "It's a fitting end to a phenomenal unwinding of an iconic brand and business."