Why X? The origins of Musk’s fascination with the letter X can be traced back to 1999. That is when he founded a financial start-up called X.com, which would later become the payments giant PayPal after its merger with a company co-founded by Peter Thiel and Max Levchin. Musk would eventually leave the firm, in part because he wanted the company’s name to remain X.com. After that, he launched Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, which would be known as SpaceX. His electric car company Tesla also boasts a Model X vehicle, and X is even the name of his son with musician Grimes. Is this a complete rebrand? It’s becoming increasingly clear that Musk’s rebrand will encompass all parts of Twitter. Earlier reports claimed Apple was initially hesitant to allow the switchover as it violated its policy banning app names with fewer than two characters. Twitter’s original tagline (”let’s talk”) has also been traded for “Blaze your glory!” on X’s iOS App Store listing, which describes the app as “the trusted digital town square for everyone”. What are tweets called now? Still, it remains to be seen if Musk and co will be able to convince users to embrace the changes. After all, the platform’s features — including tweets and retweets, hashtags, and DMs — have seeped into the online lexicon. Those habits won’t change overnight and, if anything, the rebrand may lead to confusion at first. There was an indication that the word “tweet” would be dropped, with Musk initially responding to one user that they would now be called “X’s”. But, as ever with Musk, it’s hard to know what the truth really is. More recently, a Twitter user briefly spotted the word “post” instead of “tweet” on the web, which could be a sign of things to come. Notably, Twitter’s latest rival Threads also uses the same term to refer to content shared by users. How have people reacted? According to media analyst Eric Seufert, X app downloads have decreased significantly since the name change. The app tumbled down the App Store charts, with suggestions people didn’t realise Twitter was now X, not helped by the stark change in visual style of the app icon presentation. Generally, there has been bemusement as to why an experienced entrepreneur would so willingly abandon a logo that has become familiar to everyone across the internet. Others are unimpressed that a billionaire with essentially unlimited branding budgets couldn’t come up with a better logo. It is widely regarded as another misstep in Musk’s controversial takeover. For others, they decided they would never actually use the new branding, sticking to Twitter, tweeting and retweets even if they’re not the official terms. “I’m still gonna call it Twitter,” the YouTuber Marques Brownlee told his six million followers. “Not for long,” replied Musk. We shall see. MORE ABOUT