Elon Musk has changed the name of Twitter to just X and is doing everything he can to strip remnants of the old brand from the social media company’s headquarters in San Francisco. But the removal of the Twitter brand faced an unexpected obstacle on Monday afternoon: Local police.
San Francisco police officers were called to Twitter HQ on Monday afternoon because the building owners weren’t told about the sign being changed, according to the San Francisco Standard. Musk had previously tried to change the sign to read “Titter,” another change that building owners were reportedly not happy about.
Workers were able to remove most of the lettering, as you can see from the photo above, but the letters E and R still remain. Another sign facing the other side of the street appears to still have the full name Twitter without any alteration. Twitter has occupied an office space at 10th and Market Street in San Francisco since 2012 and it’s not clear whether the owners of the building will allow the remaining Twitter branding to be removed.
Musk purchased Twitter back in October 2022 and made a lot of dramatic changes that have caused the company’s valuation to plummet. The billionaire fired thousands of people and is still fighting in court over severance packages that former employees say they were promised. Musk also made the controversial decision to grant a kind of amnesty for many Twitter users who had previously been banned on the platform, including people like musician Kanye West, neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes and former President Donald Trump. West and Fuentes were both banned again after spouting hate, though Trump never rejoined the social media site.
Musk has also shown what can only be described as erratic behavior on the platform, seeming to announce major changes before they’re ready to be implemented. As just one example, Musk announced a program to share ad revenue with creators back in February, insisting it would start that month, but only launched that program in July. And it’s still not fully up and running, according to reports, only paying out hand-picked creators who are mostly far-right instigators, according to the Washington Post.
Musk’s vision for X is reportedly for the social media platform into the “everything app,” perhaps like WeChat is used in China. The Chinese app handles messaging like Twitter but also allows users to pay for services and organize events. But it remains to be seen whether X can expand into highly technical areas like banking if decisions are being made in such a slapdash manner. Despite making a very public branding switch to X, most of the site still includes elements of the old branding. As just one example, the search bar in the upper-right-hand corner still reads “Search Twitter.”
Twitter, while it had some struggles with remaining profitable before Musk took over, was a widely recognized brand that came to define many elements of internet culture. And Musk is apparently tossing all of that brand equity into the garbage bin in an attempt to remake it into a brand he’s long been obsessed with. Analysts and brand agencies that spoke with Bloomberg estimate getting rid of the Twitter brand will likely wipe anywhere from $4 billion to $20 billion from the company’s value. That’s a significant drop when you remember that Fidelity estimated back in May that Twitter is only worth about $15 billion today.
Musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion last year.
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