(San Francisco) Exit the volatile: Twitter, which means tweet in English and which used a blue bird as its logo since its launch in 2006, launched its new logo on its website on Monday, a stylized capital X in black and white.
Elon Musk, the whimsical businessman and owner of the social network, and the company’s new chief executive, Linda Yaccarino, hired just a month ago, announced over the weekend that the platform would drop the bluebird logo, be rebranded as X and quickly launch into payments, banking and commerce.
While the social network’s website is showing the new logo on Monday morning, its URL is still twitter.com, the blue “Tweet” button is still on the site, and some users have seen a blue version of the X logo.
“‘X’ is here! We will do it, ”wrote on Twitter Mme Yaccarino, posting a photo of the new logo around 1:50 a.m. EST Monday.
By Sunday, Mr Musk had changed his profile picture on Twitter, replacing it with the new logo, which he described as “art deco”. He also changed the link in his bio to X.com, which now redirects to the Twitter site.
On Saturday evening, Mr. Musk had said he was considering getting rid of the Twitter logo. “We will soon say ‘farewell’ (in French, editor’s note) to the Twitter brand and, gradually, to all the birds,” he tweeted, before suggesting that the new logo could be an X.
“If a good enough X logo is posted tonight, we’ll put it online worldwide tomorrow,” he said.
Asked by a netizen, Mr. Musk had also indicated that the tweets would be called Xs after the name change.
X is a mathematical symbol that the boss of Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter and Neuralink is particularly fond of. X. com was the name and website of the online bank founded by the businessman that later became the PayPal online payment service.
It is also found in the first name of one of his children, a boy baptized X Æ A-12.
” No limit ”
After buying Twitter last year for $44 billion, Mr. Musk changed the company’s name to X Corp in April. He has regularly mentioned since his nebulous project to transform it into a multifaceted application, with financial services, like WeChat in China.
“Powered by AI, X will connect us in ways we are only just beginning to imagine,” Ms.me Yaccarino, Sunday on Twitter.
“X is the future state of boundless interactivity – centered around audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services and opportunities,” she added.
“There are absolutely no limits to this transformation. X will be the platform that can provide, well…everything,” she continued.
“For years, fans and haters alike have pushed Twitter to dream bigger, innovate faster, fulfill our potential. X will do that and more, ”assured this former executive of NBCUniversal, recruited by Mr. Musk in particular to try to reassure advertisers.
The name change would come at a time of trouble for Twitter, which Mr. Musk has laid off about half of the staff and whose advertising revenue has fallen by 50%, according to the billionaire.
The social network faces a myriad of competing apps, including Meta-launched newcomer Threads, which is estimated to have 150 million users.
Twitter brings together between 200 and 350 million active users depending on estimates.