Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[Tamas]

This is going to come very handy for Orban.

[Tamas]

Moreover I think whoever thinks it's a good idea considers the general public unruly subjects.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Moreover I think whoever thinks it's a good idea considers the general public unruly subjects.

Don't tell me you're surprised by this. The commission is not the friend of the european peoples

[Sophie Scholl]

So it appears "Twitter" and the "bird" are not long for this world. He's going with the super edgy "x" as a name instead. I'm baffled that the manchild is actually 52. I had to look it up to confirm. He's eternally stuck in the mindset of a teen in the early 90's. Just... wow.  Arrested Psychological Development has a legit poster child forever now.   
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[Syt]

He's hoping for a WWE attitude era logo, isn't he?

[Syt]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-24/twitter-turning-into-x-is-set-to-kill-billions-in-brand-value

Twitter Turning Into X Is Set to Kill $4-20 Billion in Brand Value

It's rare for corporate brands to become so intertwined with everyday conversation that they become verbs. It's rarer still for the owner of such a brand to announce plans to intentionally destroy it.

On Sunday, in the middle of a quiet summer weekend, Elon Musk decreed that Twitter's product name would be changed to "X," and that he is getting rid of the bird logo and all the associated words, including "tweet." Musk's move wiped out anywhere between $4 billion and $20 billion in value, according to analysts and brand agencies.

"It took 15-plus years to earn that much equity worldwide, so losing Twitter as a brand name is a significant financial hit," said Steve Susi, director of brand communication at Siegel & Gale. Musk, whose company has already declined significantly in value since he purchased it for $44 billion in October, announced the change on Saturday night. By Monday morning a new black "X" logo, designed by a fan over the weekend, began to appear across the site. New Chief Executive Officer Linda Yaccarino outlined the company's vision for X to become a site for audio, video, messaging, payments and banking.

Analysts and brand agencies call the product's renaming a mistake. Twitter is one of the most recognizable social media brands, said Todd Irwin, founder of brand agency Fazer. Bird decals adorn small businesses and websites worldwide, alongside Instagram and Facebook logos.

Twitter's popularity has also made verbs like "tweet" and "retweet" part of modern culture, used regularly to explain how celebrities, politicians and others communicated with the public, said Joshua White, assistant professor of finance at Vanderbilt University.

X will require the company to rebuild that cultural pull and linguistic consensus from scratch. But that may be part of the motivation, so users stop comparing Twitter post-takeover to what it was before. "It's an exceptionally rare thing — in life or in business — that you get a second chance to make another big impression," Yaccarino tweeted.

Other tech companies have renamed themselves in recent years. Google turned into Alphabet Inc. to allow different businesses within the company to grow without being tied to search. Facebook changed into Meta Platforms Inc. in order to emphasize the company's commitment to the metaverse. But the product names remained; we still google things by going to Google.

That's worth a lot. Twitter's brand value is estimated at about $4 billion, according to brand valuation consulting firm Brand Finance. The firm values the Facebook brand at $59 billion and Instagram at $47.4 billion. Vanderbilt University estimates Twitter's brand value at $15 billion to $20 billion, which is comparable to Snapchat. Brand valuation is difficult to determine, and there's no single approach, which is why estimates vary, said Dipanjan Chatterjee, an analyst with Forrester Research Inc. But several analysts and agencies agreed that the company's brand has already taken a significant hit since Musk's takeover. Brand Finance for example, estimates the Twitter brand lost 32% of its value since last year.

As the perception of Twitter's brand has changed, advertisers have fled. Advertisers were concerned about Musk's courting of controversy and embrace of tweeters who broke content rules. Advertising revenue at Twitter is down more than 50% since October, Musk has said. "Twitter's corporate brand is already heavily intertwined with Musk's personal brand, with or without the name X, and much of Twitter's established brand equity has already been lost among users and advertisers," said Jasmine Enberg, an analyst with Insider Intelligence.

It's "completely irrational from a business and brand point of view," said Allen Adamson, co-founder of the marketing and brand consulting group Metaforce. He called it an "ego decision" on the part of Musk. "To me, it's going to go down in history as one of the fastest unwinding of a business and brand ever."

There's also the risk to Musk's future goals. Building banking and payments into the app will require customer trust — something that's difficult to get with a brand-new product name. "I just think that customers outside of Musk's sort of core fan base would really struggle to use Twitter to exchange their money," Vanderbilt's White said.

One thing working in Musk's favor: "The Elon brand," said Irwin. "His personal brand might be more powerful than the Twitter brand."

Also, the "fan designed X logo" seems to come from just some font:

[HVC]

3d chess.

[Syt]

Also, "X" is very popularly trademarked by companies for various stuff, including Microsoft and Meta:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/problem-with-x-meta-microsoft-hundreds-more-own-trademarks-new-twitter-name-2023-07-25/

July 24 (Reuters) - Billionaire Elon Musk's decision to rebrand Twitter as X could be complicated legally: companies including Meta (META.O) and Microsoft (MSFT.O) already have intellectual property rights to the same letter.

X is so widely used and cited in trademarks that it is a candidate for legal challenges - and the company formerly known as Twitter could face its own issues defending its X brand in the future.

"There's a 100% chance that Twitter is going to get sued over this by somebody," said trademark attorney Josh Gerben, who said he counted nearly 900 active U.S. trademark registrations that already cover the letter X in a wide range of industries.

Musk renamed social media network Twitter as X on Monday and unveiled a new logo for the social media platform, a stylized black-and-white version of the letter.

Owners of trademarks - which protect things like brand names, logos and slogans that identify sources of goods - can claim infringement if other branding would cause consumer confusion. Remedies range from monetary damages to blocking use.

Microsoft since 2003 has owned an X trademark related to communications about its Xbox video-game system. Meta Platforms - whose Threads platform is a new Twitter rival - owns a federal trademark registered in 2019 covering a blue-and-white letter "X" for fields including software and social media.

Meta and Microsoft likely would not sue unless they feel threatened that Twitter's X encroaches on brand equity they built in the letter, Gerben said.

The three companies did not respond to requests for comment.

Meta itself drew intellectual property challenges when it changed its name from Facebook. It faces trademark lawsuits filed last year by investment firm Metacapital and virtual-reality company MetaX, and settled another over its new infinity-symbol logo.

And if Musk succeeds in changing the name, others still could claim 'X' for themselves.

"Given the difficulty in protecting a single letter, especially one as popular commercially as 'X', Twitter's protection is likely to be confined to very similar graphics to their X logo," said Douglas Masters, a trademark attorney at law firm Loeb & Loeb.

"The logo does not have much distinctive about it, so the protection will be very narrow."

Insider reported earlier that Meta had an X trademark, and lawyer Ed Timberlake tweeted that Microsoft had one as well.

Reporting by Blake Brittain in Washington; Additional reporting by Sheila Dang; Editing by Peter Henderson and Sonali Paul

[Syt]

 

[mongers]

Maybe this is Musk's 'X it' strategy from the business?

[Josquius]

This makes no sense. Surely the main value in twitter is the branding?
I guess some data value and eliminating a competitor too but... Damn.

[Tamas]

This makes no sense. Surely the main value in twitter is the branding?
I guess some data value and eliminating a competitor too but... Damn.

I suspect that public attention on his Twitter shenanigans was waning, causing increasing bruises on his ego. He had to do SOMETHING and a rebrand a 12 years old boy would come up with was the best he could think of.

[Syt]

[garbon]

I don't understand this idea of making an everything app. What about Musk would make someone interested in giving him more information about themselves?

[Josquius]

I mean it works in Asia. A few different examples of it there.

Though from what I understand the financial system is very different there and this app as a work around is necessary. No chip and pin, crap bank apps, expensive slow person to person transfers, etc...