Elon Musk revealed plans to replace Twitter’s signature blue bird logo with an X, as the billionaire continues to make major moves to overhaul the social media company to improve its financial position.

The move will mark Twitter’s first major visual rebranding in years and follows a series of tweets by Musk indicating plans to ditch the blue bird icon.

As part of the rebranding, posts on Twitter will be known as x’s, instead of tweets, according to Musk.

The X logo ties in with X Corp, a shell company formed in April that now houses Twitter. Bloomberg reported at the time Musk was exploring using the X brand to create an “everything app” similar to Tencent Holdings’ WeChat.

Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino added the design overhaul is just the beginning of Twitter’s transformation into a “global marketplace” for various services spanning messaging to banking.

Poll
Musk hinted a rebrand was imminent through a poll to gather users’ votes on Twitter’s default colour, before asking them to suggest an X logo for the rebrand.

“If a good enough X logo is posted tonight, we’ll make it go live worldwide tomorrow”, said Musk on Sunday (23 July).

Pictures showing an X were also projected onto Twitter’s US offices, although Musk stated that logo is temporary.

He tweeted the design “probably changes later, certainly will be refined”, in response to a user providing the image.

The branding overhaul comes after Musk stated last week the company had lost almost half of its advertising revenue since he completed the takeover in October 2022, resulting in heavy debt and negative cash flow. During his ownership of the company, he has also moved to lay-off thousands of staff and pushed paid-for features.

While the rebranding will generate much hype, research director at Forrester Mike Proulx told Reuters it could also alienate “Twitter’s original, and once fiercely loyal user base”.