Angus’ A-Z of logos: X

Pentagram partner and creative director Angus Hyland berates the redesign of Twitter to ‘X’ at the hands of Elon Musk.

It’s just over three years since Elon Musk bought Twitter in a hostile takeover bid. Despite paying well over the odds for it as a reported US$44 billion, when it was time for the social media platform to rebrand, clearly every expense was spared.

Twitter’s cute blue bird had been around since 2012, but it finally fell off its perch in 2023 when Musk officially changed the name to X, to align with his other X-themed business interests (as well as two of his 14 children, X Æ A‑Xii and Exa Dark Sideræl).

The new logo was described by Musk as ‘Art Deco’, but it was instantly recognised by graphic designers as the Unicode character “𝕏” (Mathematical Double-Struck Capital X, aka U+1D54F). Who needs a fancy branding agency when you can just copy and paste your new logo straight from Google, eh?

Whatever you think about the logo, by changing the name to X and throwing away the little blue bird, Musk got rid of the very thing that made Twitter so unique – the Tweet. No other social platform has its own mode of delivery, and while Musk was confident that Tweets would soon become Xs, this has not caught on, even when people do remember not to call it Twitter anymore.

Fast forward to 2025, users and advertising revenue are down, and it’s estimated that the company is rumoured to be worth around 70% less than the amount that Musk originally paid for it. The Twitter rebrand is probably one of the least effective rebrands since Prince became a symbol back in the day, but its current plight can’t be blamed on the new name and visual identity.

Of course when Musk took over Twitter, it wasn’t just the name and identity that changed. With his libertarian free speech agenda and rampant cost-cutting, moderation was loosened, and hate speech, misinformation and abuse subsequently skyrocketed. Spam and bots multiplied, which led to the inevitable erosion of trust, and Twitter (sorry) X soon became the unsanitised medieval marketplace it is today.

Does Elon Musk care? Probably not, as he’s still the richest man in the world and X still has 650 million monthly active users. He didn’t buy it as a way to make money, it was always more about influence and power, two things which (like a beautifully-executed new brand identity) money can definitely buy.

Next time: Two brands that personify the luxury gap