Elon Musk’s latest change to Twitter, the social media platform he has appeared intent on sabotaging ever since he was strong-armed into honouring his commitment to buy it, appears to be the most baffling yet. In place of a chirruping blue bird, he has substituted a “minimalist art deco” X, which was beamed across the facade of the firm’s San Francisco headquarters this week.
Mr Musk, one analyst told the Guardian, had “singlehandedly wiped out over 15 years of a brand name that has secured its place in our cultural lexicon”. It’s hard to disagree. The blue bird had a charm that the ominous X does not. One graphic designer thought the new logo “unwelcoming and threatening”. In replacing the gentle invitation of a tweet with something more darkly anonymous, the world’s richest person might be expressing more than he intended.
