Twitter to change logo and bid adieu to ‘all the birds’

Twitter owner Elon Musk has signalled that he would do more to take the social media company in a new direction with a rebranding that will replace its well-known blue bird logo with an X after acknowledging advertisers have been slow to return.
The change, which was not evident on the website yesterday afternoon, followed Musk’s recent admission that advertising revenue remains nearly half of what it once was.
And Twitter’s cash flow has been negative as a result of that and its heavy debt load.
“Interim X logo goes live later today,” Musk said on Twitter adding that “X.com” would now redirect to Twitter’s website.
Musk’s X Corp owns Twitter.
The billionaire said in a post yesterday that he wanted to change Twitter’s logo and polled his millions of followers whether they would favour changing the site’s colour scheme from blue to black.
Musk posted a picture of a stylised X against a black outer space-themed background.
“And soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds,” he said.
The company said it would be commenting on the changes later.
Under Musk’s tumultuous tenure since he bought Twitter in October, the company has changed its business name to X Corp, reflecting the billionaire’s vision to create a “super app” like China’s WeChat.
In April, Twitter’s legacy blue bird logo was temporarily replaced by Dogecoin’s Shiba Inu dog, helping drive a surge in the cryptocurrency’s market value.
The company came under widespread criticism from users and marketing professionals when Musk announced early this month that Twitter would limit how many tweets per day various accounts can read.
The daily limits helped Meta Platforms-owned rival service Threads, which crossed 100mn sign-ups within five days of its July 5 launch.
Twitter, founded in 2006 and whose name is a play on the sound of birds chattering, has used avian branding since its early days, when the company bought a stock symbol of a light blue bird for $15, according to the design website Creative Bloq.
Twitter is thought to have around 200mn daily active users but it has suffered repeated technical failures since the tycoon bought the so-called bird app for $44bn in 2022 and sacked much of its staff.
Since then, many users and advertisers alike have soured on the social media site thanks to charges introduced for previously free services, changes to content moderation and the return of previously banned right-wing accounts.