The tech billionaire started removing the bird logo that has been part of Twitter’s identity since 2006.
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For more than 10 years, Twitter has been recognizable for its blue and white bird logo, which became a symbol of the social network’s unique culture and lexicon. To “tweet” became a verb. A “tweet” referred to a post. “Tweeps” became the moniker for Twitter employees.
Late on Sunday, Elon Musk began getting rid of it all.
The tech billionaire, who bought Twitter last year, renamed the social platform X.com on its website and started replacing the bird logo with a stylized version of the 24th letter of the Latin alphabet.
Inside Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco on Monday, X logos were projected in the cafeteria, while conference rooms were renamed to words with X in them, including “eXposure,” “eXult” and “s3Xy,” according to photos seen by The New York Times. Workers also began removing bird-related paraphernalia, such as a giant blue logo in the cafeteria. Outside the building, workers took off the first six letters of Twitter’s name before the San Francisco Police Department stopped them for performing “unauthorized work,” according to an alert sent by the department.
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Mr. Musk had long said he might make the name change, but he hastened the process in a tweet early Sunday when he declared that “soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds.” He has said he hopes to turn Twitter into an “everything app” called X, which would encompass not only social networking but also banking and shopping.
Earlier on Monday, Mr. Musk also shared a photo of a giant X projected on Twitter’s San Francisco office building with the caption: “Our headquarters tonight.”
The moves — which are continuing — are the most visible changes that Mr. Musk has made to Twitter since he closed the deal to buy the company in October. Behind the scenes, he has taken many steps to overhaul the firm, eliminating thousands of employees and changing the platform’s features, including badges that were meant to verify users, as well as the rules governing what can and can’t be said on the service.
Yet the name and logo changes were impossible to ignore. By starting to remove the Twitter name, Mr. Musk tossed out an entrenched brand that had been around since 2006 — when the company was founded — and that had delighted and frustrated celebrities, politicians, athletes and other users in equal measure. Twitter introduced its blue bird mascot in 2010 and updated it two years later.
Many Twitter users, who have spent years tweeting and building up their presence on the site, appeared alienated by the shift. “Has everybody seen the (eXecrable) new logo?” the actor Mark Hamill tweeted on Monday, with the hashtag #ByeByeBirdie. Others
