X-Factor or Disaster?: Elon Musk's many experiments with Twitter

Elon Musk has acquired the reputation of an enfant terrible of the corporate world and his antics have not amused and confounded other high-level operatives. The South African-born billionaire who bought Twitter, the social media company, in a very contentious deal in 2022, this month decided to pluck the blue bird out of social media and name the hugely popular platform as ‘X’.

Many have jumped into criticising the move pointing out that brand recognition is one of Twitter’s core strengths. After all, one tweeted out something, not “x’d” out something. Musk, who is the most followed profile in the social media platform previously known as Twitter, tweeted out logo suggestions.

Twitter’s minimalistic blue bird has now been replaced with a black and white X which seems more fitting for an adult entertainment website than a social media platform. The switch from the blue bird to the white and black X happened on 24 July, however it was explained that the 24th letter of the English alphabet has been in Musk’s mind for a while. X was the original name of the online bank Musk co-founded in 1999 that later became PayPal. He bought the X domain site from his old company in 2017 for “great sentimental value”.

Musk changed the social media company’s name in April 2023 from Twitter Inc. to X Corp. which sounds more fitting to something out of Marvel Comics. It was pointed out that the founder of SpaceX wants to turn the app previously known as Twitter into an everything app in the mould of China’s WeChat, getting into banking and shopping. To make things more absurd for Musk, it turns out many of his direct competitors such as Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft already own the rights of the 24th letter of the alphabet.

It was explained that Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, owns a federal trademark of the letter “X” in blue and white in fields such as software and social media. Meanwhile, Microsoft trademarked the letter “X” all the way back in 2003, pertaining to its video game console Xbox.

Of course, X is only one letter in the A to the Z of problems for the social media company formerly known as Twitter. It was reported that the social media company that Elon Musk owns is worth in at the moment half of the 44 billion US dollars the South African-born billionaire paid originally for it in October 2022.

Musk revealed he had fired over 80% of Twitter’s employees. He claimed the move was painful but it had helped the company to break even. The policy change of the blue checkmark, which went to being used only by personalities, institutions and other opinion leaders to anyone who can buy it.

This drew a lot of criticism and many important users to look into switching to competitors. Many are anxiously asking that would the X become an example of extraordinary success and exceed expectations of the SpaceX genius extraordinaire or would just exist as another exorbitant and expensive experiment to be axed in an unceremonious exit. Only time will tell.