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Twitter owner Elon Musk has said he wants to get rid of the Twitter bird logo, and replace it with an “X”. Mr Musk, who has changed the name of the business to X Corp, said the replacement “should have been done a long time ago”.According to reports, the billionaire wants to create a “super app” called “X” which is similar to China’s WeChat.

He said on Sunday 23^rd July 2023 he was looking to change Twitter’s logo, tweeting: “And soon we shall bid adieu to the Twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds.” He then said that an interim logo would go live later the same day.

Mr. Musk posted an image of a flickering “X” on Twitter, and later in a Twitter Spaces audio chat, replied “Yes” when asked if the Twitter logo will change, adding that “it should have been done a long time ago”.

The company’s chief executive, Linda Yaccarino, wrote on the platform that the rebrand was an exciting new opportunity.

“Twitter made one massive impression and changed the way we communicate,” she said.

“Now, X will go further, transforming the global town square.”

The bird is called Larry which Twitter’s co-founder Biz Stone said, in 2011, is a tribute to basketball star and Boston Celtics legend Larry Bird. For some people in Asia, super-apps including India’s PayTM and Indonesia’s GoJek have been a vital part of everyday lives for the past few years. The apps let users pay for services through a finance system.

WeChat is a messaging and social media platform that has evolved into one of the region’s biggest apps in terms of its range of services and number of users. Last year, it was estimated to have 1.29 billion users in China alone.

Bird logo

Since Mr. Musk bought Twitter in October 2022, the company has changed its business name to X Corp.

Twitter’s website says its logo, depicting a blue bird, is “our most recognizable asset”. “That’s why we’re so protective of it,” it added.

The firm temporarily replaced the logo in April with Dogecoin’s Shiba Inu dog, helping drive a surge in the meme coin’s market value. Mr. Musk was later accused of insider trading by a group of Dogecoin investors, who claimed he had profited from driving up Dogecoin’s value. The company was criticized by users and marketers when Mr. Musk announced earlier this month that there would be a limit on how many tweets per day various account holders can read.

The daily limits helped in the growth of Meta-owned rival service Threads, which had more than 100 million sign-ups in five days of launching. Twitter’s most recent complication was a lawsuit filed on Tuesday that claimed the firm owes at least $500m (£388.7m) in severance pay to former employees.

Since Mr. Musk bought it, the company has laid off more than half its workforce.