X marks the spot: Elon Musk rebrands Twitter as first step toward ‘everything app’ vision

On Sunday, July 23, tech billionaire Elon Musk began changing the iconic Twitter branding.

Musk bought Twitter last year, hoping it will expand to more than just a social site. He said he wanted to turn it into an “everything app” that would incorporate banking and shopping. In the words of the owner, the app will be Twitter, Substack, Youtube, PayPal, Amazon, TikTok, WeChat, and Baidu all rolled into one universe.

The app has become 'X,' changing the site to X.com and replacing the bird logo with an 'X' as another step toward the final goal. This change rebranded a platform that has been around since 2006.

Since he purchased Twitter, Musk has vocalized his distaste for the bird logo. He argued several corporate bird references in the company’s team names and products and even changed the name of a fact-checking feature from “Birdwatch” to “Community Notes.”

Musk said that the name change was a decision that made sense for the platform structure. With expansion plans on the horizon and since you can post almost anything on the app, he said the Twitter name needs to make more sense for the app's context.

The new name, however, did come out of thin air. The 'X' name has interested Musk since the early 2000s. In 1999, he contributed to the foundation of X.com, an online bank at the time.

The company eventually changed its name and merged with another start-up, forming PayPal. In 2017, Musk bought back the domain name from them for sentimental value, intending to use it soon.

This change comes just weeks after competitor Meta released Threads, a Twitter-like app.