Twitter is moving towards being completely “X.” The name and iconic bird logo have been removed from the company’s San Francisco headquarters, and the blue bird at the top of twitter.com has been replaced with an “X.” The new logo has received backlash from many users, and investigations have begun. Such a decision by Twitter could potentially lead to significant legal and financial troubles for the company.
What are the potential issues Twitter may face with the new logo it has chosen?
Elon Musk stated that this change is more than just a name. He wants to transform the service previously known as Twitter into an “everything app” that includes banking and financial services. However, this rebranding could bring new economic challenges to the company, which has been struggling with problems since its advertising revenue has declined by over 50%.
Firstly, there are hundreds of companies, including Microsoft and Meta, that hold trademarks for variations of “X.” This could open the door to lawsuits and other legal headaches for Musk. Shubha Ghosh, a law professor at Syracuse University, says that when large companies rebrand and change their names and logos, lawsuits are “quite common.”
Trademark attorney Josh Gerben said he identified about 900 other companies with trademarks related to “X,” making it an easy target. As the company attempts to obtain trademark registration for the new logo and deals with potential lawsuits stemming from this change, it could easily spend tens of millions of dollars on legal fees and settlement costs.
Elon Musk's attempt to rebrand Twitter as 'X' with new logo faced police intervention at HQ in SF. Here's the detail.
For the same reasons, it has emerged that using the new “X” logo internationally could be challenging for Twitter. For all the services that Musk aims to provide, successfully obtaining a trademark registration for “X” in every country where he wants to offer them seems highly unlikely. Even if Twitter manages to overcome the legal challenges in the United States, becoming an “everything app” on a global scale would be very difficult.
Even if Twitter can overcome the legal hurdles, eliminating a globally recognized brand like Twitter carries serious commercial risks. Some analysts have predicted that the name change could potentially wipe out billions of dollars from an already damaged brand, all at the hands of Musk.
