tweeted<\/a> over the weekend.<\/p>\nAccording to Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino, the rebrand is part of a larger pivot for the app,\u00a0\u201ctransforming the global town square.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cX is the future state of unlimited interactivity\u2014centered in audio, video, messaging, payments\/banking\u2014creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities. Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we\u2019re just beginning to imagine,\u201d she tweeted on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Yaccarino \u201claid out the vision for X at a meeting with top marketers\u201d on Sunday in Napa, California, according to the Financial Times. Still, some advertisers are not sold on the rebrand. \u201cMy first reaction was, \u2018Is this a joke?\u2019…Honestly, I think it\u2019s idiotic,\u201d Matt Egan, managing director of strategy at brand experience firm Siegel+Gale, said. \u201cFrom a branding point of view and a marketing point of view, it just seems like a crazy idea.\u201d<\/p>\n
Egan described it as a \u201cpretty bold move, and pretty irresponsible\u201d considering the value of Twitter\u2019s brand. \u201cThe one asset that it has is its brand,\u201d he explained, adding that the company has only occasionally turned a profit since it was founded. \u201cApparently he wasn\u2019t buying the brand, but a lot of the goodwill and a lot of the value in that company is tied up in its brand.\u201d<\/p>\n
The change comes roughly a week after Musk said Twitter\u2019s ad revenue has dropped 50%, contributing to negative cash flow for the company. Many advertisers left the platform when Musk first bought it amid concerns about content moderation and brand safety.<\/p>\n
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But the rebrand could be an attempt at a fresh start, Mario Natarelli, managing partner at marketing agency MBLM, told us. \u201cMost people as users feel kind of burned by this,\u201d he said. \u201cOn the other side, though, I think Musk is playing for a bigger prize. He understands what he bought and what was left of it isn\u2019t going to get him to where he wants to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Musk hinted at X last year after his acquisition of Twitter, tweeting that the purchase was \u201can accelerant to creating X, the everything app.\u201d In April, Twitter Inc. changed its name to X Corp. He\u2019s long been obsessed with the letter X\u2014in 1999, Musk\u2019s financial services company that merged with a competitor to become PayPal was called X.com (he also tried to get PayPal to rebrand to X.com or X-PayPal). Two of his companies also incorporate the letter: SpaceX and xAI.<\/p>\n
Shray Joshi, founder and CEO at marketing agency Good Peeps, said the rebrand could be an attempt to counter the hype around Threads, Meta\u2019s new Twitter competitor.<\/p>\n
\u201cThreads is now a thing, and so [Musk] just needed something to combat all the attention that\u2019s going there. A fun rebrand is a good way to do that. Do I think that solves, like, the other problems that Twitter is going through from a monetization perspective? No,\u201d he told us. \u201cIt\u2019s just Elon doing his classic Elon thing where he\u2019s doing an amazing job of grabbing attention and getting people to talk about his business.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n