Elon Musk says Twitter’s bird logo will soon be no more, tweeting ““soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds.”.Photo:Taylor Hill/Getty, Mustafa Ciftci/Anadolu Agency via Getty
Taylor Hill/Getty, Mustafa Ciftci/Anadolu Agency via Getty
Elon Muskhas announced that the feathery icon users have grown accustomed to is on its way out — and his preferred letter, “X,” is on the way in.
The Space X CEO, 52, whopurchased the company for $44 billion in October, teased a variety of changes to the social media platform on Saturday, including the departure of the bird, who has become synonymous with Twitter over its decade as the company’s logo.
He alsoreplied to the pollwith a YouTube link to Lana Del Rey’s song “Off To The Races” — seemingly a hint that these adjustments are only the first of many sweeping changes. The Twitter owner also shared aphotoof a black iteration of the current app logo and wrote, “Like this but X.”
“To embody the imperfections in us all that make us unique,” headdedof the design concept.
He thentweetedthat “soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds.”
“If a good enough X logo is posted tonight, we’ll make [it] go live worldwide tomorrow,” headded.
Though the “X” takeover has not yet begun, Musk did share afanmade video— posted in response to his request for a “good enough X logo” — that shows the current Twitter logo becoming an “X” in a flashy, dramatic transition. He pinned the video to his account.
In a Twitter Spaces audio chat this weekend, Musk was asked if the Twitter logo will change, which he confirmed, adding that “it should have been done a long time ago,” perReuters.
On Sunday morning, Musk joked about his obvious affinity for the letter “X,“tweeting, “Not sure what subtle clues gave it [away], but I like the letter X,” alongside a photo of himself making an “X” with his arms in front of a wall covered in the letter.
The company’s current logo, simply called the Twitter Bird, has gone through a metamorphosis since the Twitter’s 2006 launch, as detailed inThe New York Times’ article titled“Who Made That Twitter Bird?”
“Twitter is the bird, the bird is Twitter,” Bowman said during the redesign’s introduction, per theNYT, adding that it is “the ultimate representation of freedom, hope and limitless possibility.”
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Musk’s announcement about the “gradual” transition to a new “X” logo and brand identity comes afterTwitterwas reported earlier this month to be threatening to take legal action against Meta after the Facebook andInstagramparent company launched Threads,a new text-based social media network.
In the letter, Alex Spiro, a lawyer for Twitter, accused Meta CEOMark Zuckerbergof engaging in “systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property,” according to the outlet, which first reported on the letter.CNNalso confirmed the letter’s authenticity.
When reached for comment, Meta referred PEOPLE to Meta spokesperson Andy Stone’s response on Threads. “No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee — that’s just not a thing,“Stone wrote.
In its letter, Twitter claimedMetahired “dozens” of former Twitter employees who “had and continue to have access to Twitter’s trade secrets and other highly confidential information.” Twitter alleges the employees have “ongoing obligations” to Twitter and “improperly retained Twitter documents and electronic devices.” Meta “deliberately” assigned these employees to develop Threads “with the specific intent that they use Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property in order to accelerate” the development of Threads, the letter claims.
According to Twitter, Meta allegedly violated both state and federal laws as well as the suspected employees' ongoing obligations to Twitter. The company reportedly “intends to strictly enforce its intellectual property rights.”
Nathan Laine/Bloomberg via Getty
“Competition is fine, cheating is not,“Musk, 52, tweeted after reports of the letterwere published. Spiro did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
Meta, which is also the parent company ofWhatsApp, launched Threads on July 2, months after rumors that the company was developing the platform. Threads users can post messages with up to 500 characters and include photos and videos up to five minutes long.
source: people.com
