The value of Twitter had already plummeted over 30 percent below the price Elon Musk paid for it. Now, financial and branding experts expect it to plummet even further from $4 to $20 billion thanks to Elon’s brilliant business and marketing move to rebrand Twitter to X.

When Google and Facebook rebranded their parent companies to Alphabet and Meta, they didn’t change the name of their most popular products. Google is still Google and Facebook is still Facebook. X is not doing that. Twitter is now X and Elon wants people to start referring to tweets as “x’s.” Additionally, he’s killing the iconic bird logo, the logo every person on the planet knows.

Indigenous tribes in Brazil, Borneo, and North Sentinel Island where outside contact is prohibited could probably recognize the Twitter bird. As a brand logo, it’s almost as identifiable as logos for the New York Yankees, Apple, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, McDonald’s, Nike, and the Swastika.

Even if you hate Twitter and have never been on the platform, you know the bird. It’s unique. An “x” is not. It’s just an x. One trademark attorney counted nearly 900 active U.S. trademark registrations that already cover x across a wide range of industries, most of which are probably porn sites. I guess Elon wants people to know that when they look at him, they’re seeing a dick.

Elon says he’s building a “super app” that will do everything, but he could have done that under the bird logo and Twitter name. The rights to the Twitter logo itself are probably worth billions, but its outreach and recognizability are priceless. Why would anyone want to get rid of that? And, for an x?

If you lived during the 1980s, you remember the puzzling decision Coca-Cola made when it decided to ditch the flavor that built the company and gave us New Coke, which was basically just Pepsi. Did that even last a month? But while being dumb enough to change the flavor of the best-selling soft drink in the world, even Coca-Cola wasn’t stupid enough to change its logo.

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