Elon Musk hits X rebrand hiccup as police stop Twitter sign removal
Elon Musk has faced a hiccup in his drive to rebrand Twitter as X after police stopped work to remove the old name from the sign at the company’s San Francisco headquarters.
On Monday, workers were seen removing the first letters of the word Twitter before the local police department stopped them from continuing the “unauthorised work,” according to an alert sent by the department.
According to police, the social media firm had failed to communicate with security and the building’s owner its plans to remove the sign at the Market Street headquarters. Police were then called amid the confusion, though later concluded that no crime had been committed.
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After the initial work by a worker on a cherrypicker, only the blue bird and the letters “er” were left on one side of the sign.
Musk announced on Sunday that Twitter’s new logo, an X, was going live to replace the distinctive bird logo. The site’s billionaire owner tweeted: “And soon we shall bid adieu to the Twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds.”
Musk has renamed conference rooms at the headquarters to incorporate the letter “X”, according to photos seen by the New York Times. One room has been renamed “s3xy”, while another is called “eXposure”.
The Tesla CEO shared a photo of the new “X” logo being projected on Twitter’s headquarters. The logo, which Musk appealed to his millions of followers for, was posted by Twitter user Sawyer Merritt, the co-founder of a sustainable clothing business, who tweeted that the font had been used for a discontinued podcast.
The switch to the name X is the latest and perhaps most controversial change introduced to the site by Musk since he bought the social media platform for $44bn last year.
Linda Yaccarino, who was appointed as Twitter chief executive in May, said in a tweet about the rebranding on Monday: “It’s an exceptionally rare thing – in life or in business – that you get a second chance to make another big impression. Twitter made one massive impression and changed the way we communicate. Now, X will go further, transforming the global town square.”
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