Elon Musk gives ‘the middle finger’ in Twitter's X rebrand

When Mark Zuckerberg introduced the world to Meta (META), he shared a corporate vision that went beyond Facebook and into the metaverse. And when the streaming service HBO Max (WBD) ditched the HBO name and became Max, the move was seen as a way to broaden the platform’s appeal beyond the flagship network. While the rebrands drew criticisms — a strategic misstep or management’s confusion over what appeals to the public — both kept the old, valuable brands intact. In Elon Musk’s rebranding of Twitter, however, the destruction of the old, valuable identity seems to be the point.

In a move that experts say will vaporize billions of dollars in value, Musk has said goodbye to Twitter and the visuals and verbiage people have long used to describe it. In its place is X. In Musk’s vision for a super app, offering "the ability to conduct your entire financial world," there aren’t yet new products or service announcements, but rather the promise of things to come, and most importantly, the end of Twitter.

"Going with the name 'X' and all of its anti-establishment innuendo is his way of giving the middle finger to a world that’s just shown him theirs," said Steve Susi, director of brand communication at Siegel & Gale, a global brand experience firm. Where other company rebrands have typically occurred to acknowledge shortcomings or commit to transparency in the wake of a crisis, Susi said he isn’t convinced that contrition and self-effacement are in Musk’s wheelhouse. "His logical next step was to begin the gradual removal of all comparisons to the once-respected social network and just own it for better or worse."

Estimates and methodologies differ on how to measure the worth of a brand, but experts say Musk’s sudden move could erase $1 billion to as much as $13 billion in value. "Musk has shown those numbers don’t matter to him, so he’s likely to spare no expense at winning back his ego," said Susi.

Others see attempts to make sense of the apparent value destruction as missing the point. What Musk is doing, Casey Newton, the author of the Platformer newsletter wrote Monday, is akin to "cultural vandalism."

"Yes, Musk regularly issues grandiose pronouncements about how Twitter will someday become a WeChat-style 'super app,' ensure the future of civilization, and so on," Newton said. "But at its core, Musk’s misadventure at Twitter has been reactionary: an ideological purge of the employees he saw as 'woke' and entitled; a gleeful inversion of industry standards around content moderation; a hollowing out of the free product; and a redistribution of the company’s attention and wealth toward right-wing users."

Emily Bell, the director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia Journalism School, went even further, equating Musk’s moves to alter a crucial communications platform as "the destruction of civic infrastructure."

To Musk and his supporters, though, the financial upside and influence of a super app could be enormous. "If he pulls it off, an app that’s Twitter, TikTok, and Amazon, that would be a very valuable company," said Joshua White, professor of finance at Vanderbilt University.

But Musk’s rocky takeover of Twitter and his erratic leadership style have left White and others skeptical of the ambitious plans to turn Twitter into a whole new experience of life-encompassing software.

"Giving an app your bank account information, purchase history, and a record of your medicines is a whole lot different than everyone making 'Barbie' and 'Oppenheimer' jokes and posting memes," he said.

Hamza Shaban is a reporter for Yahoo Finance covering markets and the economy. Follow Hamza on Twitter @hshaban.

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