Elon Musk’s recent change to Twitter, a social media platform he has been trying to undermine since he was pressured into buying it, is quite perplexing. Instead of the iconic blue bird, he has replaced it with a “minimalist art deco” X, which was displayed on the company’s San Francisco headquarters.
According to one analyst, Mr. Musk has essentially erased the brand’s 15-year history that has become a cultural icon. It’s hard to argue against that. The blue bird had a charm that the new X logo lacks. A graphic designer even described it as unwelcoming and threatening. It seems that the world’s richest person may be conveying more than he intended by replacing the friendly tweet invitation with something more sinister.
On the app itself, bewildered academic users speculated on alternative platforms, such as Bluesky (which is still in development and requires an invite) or Mastodon (an early competitor with fewer than 3 million active users). Twitter still holds some cultural significance, as demonstrated by Labi Siffre using it to voice his concerns about racial discrimination in London.
However, in business terms, Mr. Musk’s competitors are circling. Just a day after the rebranding news, TikTok announced its own expansion into text-only posts. Mark Zuckerberg’s Threads, which garnered 100 million sign-ups in its first five days, also poses a threat.
The new logo is just one of the many disruptions inflicted on Twitter’s millions of followers. They have seen their free authenticating tick revoked and their access limited. Despite Mr. Musk’s insistence that the platform is holding its own, advertising has declined, investors have devalued their stakes, and the market believes that subscriber numbers have plummeted since his takeover.
Mr. Musk’s ultimate goal is to transform the unprofitable Twitter into a profitable super-app, where users handle all their finances and socializing. His model appears to be China’s WeChat, which became immensely popular by adding payment, e-commerce, and gaming features to its messaging platform. However, the aesthetic of the X logo contradicts that goal. The letter itself carries contradictory meanings: it represents both exclusion and presence, whether in voting or biology. It signifies multiplication and absence.
The label “minimalist art deco” is also confusing. The minimalist philosophy of stripping everything down is the complete opposite of an app that does everything. The mention of art deco evokes nostalgia for the 1920s and 30s, a bygone era of industrial revolution. Perhaps Mr. Musk was inspired by the Chrysler Building, an art deco monument to automobiles (he owns Tesla, an electric car company) that briefly held the title of the world’s tallest building before being surpassed by the Empire State Building. The fleeting nature of its technological innovation might serve as a cautionary tale.