Elon Musk stated he was about to make probably the most seen modifications to Twitter since he took management of the social media firm final fall: changing its well known fowl emblem.
In a tweet early Sunday morning Eastern time, Mr. Musk stated that “soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds.”
He added shortly after, “If a good enough X logo is posted tonight,” it will “go live worldwide tomorrow.”
“X” is a time period for what Mr. Musk has described as an “everything app” that might mix social media, immediate messaging and fee companies, akin to the favored Chinese app WeChat.
Mr. Musk has stated that purchasing Twitter is “an accelerant to creating X,” and the company entity he created to buy and management Twitter known as X Holdings.
Mr. Musk spoke on a Twitter audio livestream early Sunday to say he was altering Twitter’s emblem. “It should have been done a long time ago,” he stated. “Sorry it took so long.”
A couple of hours later, Mr. Musk stated in an e-mail to Twitter’s staff that “we are indeed changing to X” and that it was taking place “today.” “This is my last message from a Twitter email,” he wrote, earlier than signing off with a salute emoji.
Mr. Musk has few limitations to creating such alterations on the firm after taking it non-public as a part of his acquisition of the agency. But he may nonetheless encounter resistance from the banks which have lent him billions of {dollars} and the non-public traders he introduced into the deal, who may increase considerations about jettisoning one in every of Twitter’s most seen property.
The firm noticed its promoting income plummet amid the departure of gross sales executives and worries that the location had turn out to be extra liable to problematic content material. It now faces a well-funded rival in Threads, the lately launched Twitter-like service from Meta, the proprietor of Facebook.
Twitter didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Mr. Musk has had a protracted affinity for the letter X. In 1999, he co-founded X.com, an internet financial institution, and later merged it with one other start-up to create PayPal. In 2017, he stated that he repurchased the X.com area from PayPal.
Mr. Musk has not all the time adopted by on his public pronouncements, equivalent to when he tweeted that the corporate would create a content material moderation council to evaluate what sort of speech is suitable on the location.
But he has pressed forward in altering sure Twitter practices, like ending the free verification of outstanding customers’ accounts, denoted by a white-and-blue examine mark, and charging customers a subscription payment for the examine mark as an alternative.
Source: www.nytimes.com