Bye, Bye Birdie: Musk says Twitter is changing its logo to the letter "X" (It's now official!)

UPDATE: It is now official. Texts from Elon Musk and Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino confirm that Twitter's new logo is the letter "X." Yaccarino posted a tweet that said, "It’s an exceptionally rare thing – in life or in business – that you get a second chance to make another big impression."

A few minutes into Sunday morning Elon Musk took to his Twitter account to post, "And soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds." Musk posted the image of a flickering letter "X" and answered in the affirmative when asked whether the Twitter logo was going to change. He added that ""it should have been done a long time ago." 

After posting the aforementioned "X," Musk added, "If a good enough X logo is posted tonight, we’ll make go live worldwide tomorrow." Twitter's multi-billionaire owner has a habit of making off-the-cuff comments on Twitter and then revising them via an additional tweet a few hours later so we will have to actually see a new logo introduced before we can say with any certainty what is going on.

pic.twitter.com/IwcbqMnQtA

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 23, 2023

The first tweets discussing the logo change were spotted by Reuters. The report noted that Musk changed Twitter's corporate name to X Corp. after spending $44 billion to buy the social media platform back in October. Musk's goal is to build a "super app" like China's WeChat which is not only a social media hang out, but is also used for instant messaging, playing video games, as a mobile payment app and more. WeChat has over 1 billion monthly active users. Twitter has approximately 450 million monthly active users worldwide.

Musk's comments contradict Twitter's own website which notes that its blue bird trademark is "our most recognizable asset. That's why we're so protective of it." But if nothing changes Musk's mind over the next few hours, the Twitter bird might fly away to be replaced by a single letter. While Twitter started up in 2006, it wasn't until 2010 that the blue bird that we all recognize as Twitter's trademark came into being. It even has a name, seriously. According to logomyway, it is called Larry T Bird after Boston Celtics Hall of Famer Larry Bird.

While it isn't clear whether Twitter would still call its messages "tweets" if the bird logo is replaced, that term might be too entrenched for any change to be made.