Musk says Twitter to change logo to ‘X’ from the bird, changes could come as early as Monday

NEW YORK –

Elon Musk said Sunday that he plans to change the logo of Twitter to an “X” from the bird, marking what would be the latest big change since he bought the social media platform for US$44 billion last year.

In a series of posts on his Twitter account starting just after 12 a.m. ET, Twitter’s owner said that he’s looking to make the change worldwide as soon as Monday.

“And soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds,” Musk wrote on his account.

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.