Elon Musk announced on Twitter Sunday that the app’s world-renown bird logo would be switched to an “X” at some point later that same day.
The Twitter owner previously said the change would happen on Monday but announced hours later via the app that the “Interim X logo goes live later today.”
Early Sunday morning, Musk posted a short video of a flickering “X.” Later in a Twitter Spaces audio chat he replied “Yes” when asked if the company’s logo will change.
“Yeah we’re cutting the Twitter logo off the building with blow torches,” Musk said to an unknown speaker.
This adjustment will be the latest big change since he bought the social media platform for $44 billion last year.
Musk said the idea of changing the logo to “X” is “To embody the imperfections in us all that make us unique,” according to a tweet.
“And soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds,” Musk wrote.
Earlier this month, the billionaire Tesla CEO put new curfews on his digital town square, a move that met with sharp criticism that it could drive away more advertisers and undermine its cultural influence as a trendsetter.
The higher tweet-viewing threshold is part of an $8-per-month subscription service that Musk rolled out earlier this year in an attempt to boost Twitter revenue. Revenue has dropped sharply since Musk took over the company and laid off roughly three-fourths of the workforce to slash costs and avoid bankruptcy.
In May, Musk hired longtime NBC Universal executive Linda Yaccarino as Twitter’s CEO.
Luring advertisers is essential for Musk and Twitter after many fled in the early months after his takeover of the social media platform, fearing damage to their brands in the enveloping chaos. Advertisers have cut back on spending partly because of changes Musk has made that has allowed for more hateful content to flourish and that has offended a wider part of the platform’s audience.
Musk said in late April that advertisers had returned, but provided no specifics.
Musk’s move to change Twitter’s logo to an “X” also comes as Twitter faces new competition from Meta’s new app, Threads, launched earlier this month. It has been seen as an alternative for those who have been souring on Twitter.
Threads is being billed as a text-based version of Meta’s photo-sharing app Instagram that the company has said offers “a new, separate space for real-time updates and public conversations.”
In the first five days of its launch, 100 million people had signed up for Threads, according to a post on Threads by Instagram head Adam Mosseri.
