Twitter’s rebrand to X has its website looking like a mess
After decades of looking for something to do with his X.com domain name, Elon Musk has finally found it. Twitter, a globally recognized brand that brought the word “tweet” into the mainstream lexicon around the world, is apparently no more.
Twitter is now X.
Musk had previously talked about using Twitter to create his ultimate vision for an everything app known as X. However, the decision to rebrand Twitter to X right now seems to have come together over the weekend, with Musk literally crowdsourcing amongst his followers for a new logo design.
“And soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds,” Musk tweeted before eventually choosing a new design.
The new logo for the platform now known as X is simply 𝕏, a generic Unicode character that stands for a “mathematical double-struck capital X.”
And in the very early hours of Monday morning, Musk dropped Twitter’s infamous blue bird logo in exchange for the 𝕏 across the website. The company also switched the avatars of all of its official accounts from the blue bird to the new “X” logo, too.
A rebranding of this magnitude usually takes a lot of time and effort — something that Musk clearly did not afford his team. X, the platform now formerly known as Twitter, looks like an absolute mess right now, as Musk hasn’t bid adieu to all the birds quite yet.
While Musk has had the platform’s logos replaced with the 𝕏 icon on its homepage, the copy still invites visitors to “Join Twitter today.”
Users looking to log in are also met with the new “X” logo, embedded right above a prompt telling them to “sign in to Twitter.”
Once logged in, users are greeted with the 𝕏 logo where the blue bird once perched atop the left-hand side menu bar. But, right across from that logo is a text field telling users to “Search Twitter.”
It’s all very confusing for users of the platform, as Twitter / X very much looks like it’s in the midst of an identity crisis.
To make matters worse, the most important piece of the puzzle — the X.com domain name — is not fully working. Musk announced the redirect on Sunday, meaning that X.com should forward users directly to Twitter.com. However, in a true sign of a last-minute idea — as this would’ve been done well in advance of a public rollout — the DNS update is not propagating for many users as it sometimes takes some time to fully take effect. So, for now, some visitors are greeted with a GoDaddy domain name parking page when they go to X.com.
Some aspects of Musk’s platform have been completely ignored in the rebrand. Twitter Blue, the $ 8 per month premium subscription service is, well, still called Twitter Blue.
The platform’s terms of service and privacy policy changes all continue to reference Twitter and use the bird logo instead of the “X” design that replaces the logo elsewhere.
The biggest revenue driver for the platform, Twitter Business and its Twitter Advertising service, all remain untouched as well. Brands logging in to manage their ads on the website now known as X are welcomed with the message “TWITTER IS #WHATSHAPPENING.”
But, aside from the part of the platform that historically accounts for more than 90 percent of its yearly revenue, there are some interesting spots where Musk made sure the rebrand was made.
While the Twitter bird favicon could still be seen in the URL input on web browsers earlier on Monday morning, it has since been swapped with the 𝕏.
The company also began taking down the Twitter sign from its San Francisco building headquarters on Monday afternoon. And inside the building, company employees were greeted with the new “X” logo projected in the cafeteria and renamed employee conference rooms with X-themed names like “eXposure” and “s3Xy.”
