Did Elon Musk Steal the X Logo? Original Handle Owner Claims Twitter Offered Merch and Office Tour
Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, shocked everyone when he announced in a tweet from his official account that the iconic blue bird logo would be changed to an ‘X’ as part of a major rebrand. According to reports, the decision to alter the logo is unexpected and inevitable.
Recent updates from Musk indicate that he is still experimenting with the branding, so users may notice some additional changes to the logo in the future. The owner of the x account, however, has reportedly spoken out against Elon Musk’s decision to take over his account.
Did Elon Musk take away Gene X Hwang’s Twitter account?
According to reports online, Gene X Hwang, co-founder of Orange Photography had his Twitter account under the name @x, which was registered in 2007 and had about 53,000 followers, but he was planning to see it off. Instead, he shared that he received an email from Elon Musk‘s X Corp informing him that the company would be taking over his Twitter account.
The Telegraph reported that Hwang had mentioned that no one from the company had reached out to him to discuss the situation but they just took account and gave him a much longer handle, @x12345678998765. He shared with Insider,
“When it all started happening, I thought maybe something cool would come out of it. In a way, it was kind of like the fantasy of winning a lottery ticket. You buy the ticket and there’s some hope that maybe you’ll win something, but you also know that’s probably not going to happen.”
The co-founder of Orange Photography said that some amount of compensation does not seem like it would be a huge thing for them to do and he would accept the amount, clarifying that he was in no way trying to extort money or anything like that.
Read this: Elon Musk Officially Rebrands Twitter, Tweets Will be Called an ‘X’
Elon Musk’s X Corp proposed Gene X Hwang with X merch and a visit to HQ
Further in the report by the Telegraph, it was noted that the mail that was sent by X Corp to Gene X Hwang pointed out that they would provide him with X merchandise and an exclusive visit to X’s headquarters to meet the team. Hwang, however, mentioned that he had already been to X’s headquarters years ago with a friend and would like to have Twitter-related merchandise rather than X-branded.
According to reports by Reuters, this is not just one problem that Twitter’s rebranding could face, but Microsoft has owned an X trademark since 2003 which is related to their Xbox, and along with that, Meta has owned a federal trademark since 2019 covering a blue-and-white letter X.
Even though Meta has not decided if they would like to pursue legal action or not, trademark attorney Josh Gerben shared with the publication that Elon Musk’s Twitter could be sued by somebody over the X rebranding, as he’s counted nearly 900 active U.S. trademark registrations that cover X across various industries.
Elon Musk on Twitter’s rebranding
The billionaire in a recent interview revealed the reason why he went ahead to rebrand the micro-blogging site and changed the iconic blue bird to an X. In a report by CNBC now, the change of the logo depicts Musk’s attempt to create an all-encompassing platform for everything app.
The reports suggested that Musk had said that earlier there were just 140 characters that were posted online going back and forth like birds tweeting. However, according to him, now with his rebranding, touch users can post ‘almost anything’.
The tech billionaire acquired Twitter last year in October and, since then, has been the center of the news by bringing change to the social media platform, now and then starting with laying off a lot of employees, introducing a subscription model where anyone gets a verified badge. Recently, former NBCUniversal executive Linda Yaccarino was appointed the CEO of Twitter.
She tweeted, “It’s an exceptionally rare thing – in life or business – that you get a second chance to make another big impression. Twitter made a massive impression and changed the way we communicate. Now, X will go further, transforming the global town square.”
Twitter’s logo change has been the biggest development since Yaccarino’s induction who has been on board with the idea of rebranding since day one.
Source: The Telegraph
