Brand Autopsy: X

Elon Musk paid $44 billion for Twitter. Then he killed the brand overnight.

That little blue bird was one of the most recognised logos on the planet. The word "Tweet" had even entered the dictionary. The brand had become a verb. Brands dream of this. It takes decades to build and achieve this level of recognition.

Musk replaced it with a letter.

The argument that they went for was 'positioning'. X would become an everything app. Payments, messaging, video, commerce. A fresh identity for a fresh direction.

The problem being that nobody had actually asked for an 'everything app'. Users wanted Twitter to work better, not to become something else entirely, it was too much of a shock to the system.

Rebranding works very well when you are moving toward something your audience wants, it becomes and evolution and it is expected. It fails when you are running away from something your audience already loves.

Twitter had problems. The algorithm, bots, toxicity. None of those were problems a new logo would fix. Journalists and style guides still hedge with “X (formerly Twitter)” because the new name still hasn’t stuck. There’s also evidence that brand language hasn’t shifted — people still say “tweet” and “retweet” despite the official changes.

Sometimes the bravest brand decision is to fix what you already have.