Topline
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and the owner and chief technology officer of Twitter, has announced the rebrand of the social network company to X–here’s Musk’s historic use of the X brand.
The world’s richest man has has a love for X evident in his earliest days of business. (Photo by … [+] Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Timeline
1999Musk co-founded the online banking platform, X.com, which allegedly sparked his obsession with the letter X, though once the company merged with Confinity in 2002 was renamed what is now known as PayPal by 2001.
2002Musk co-founded the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, or SpaceX, the aerospace company that manufactures aircraft and provides launch services and satellite communications and, according to CNBC, is now valued at $150 billion as of this month.
2015Musk’s automotive company Tesla debuted its third vehicle, the Model X, which has grown to be one of the best-selling electric vehicles, having accounted for—along with the Model S—19,225 of the company’s 466,140 deliveries this past quarter and 10,695 of its 422,875 deliveries in the first quarter of the year.
2017Musk tweeted that he had purchased back the rights to X.com, saying it had “great sentimental value” to him.
April 18, 2023Musk informed Twitter’s corporate partners that the company would be operating as X Corp after court documents found that Twitter, Inc. no longer existed.
July 12, 2023Musk, along with engineers at his fellow companies Tesla and OpenAI and other big tech companies Google and Microsoft, launched artificial intelligence company xAI Corp with a goal “to understand the true nature of the universe.”
July 23, 2023Musk announced the rebranding of Twitter, a popular social networking company he acquired last year for $44 billion, to X.
Surprising Fact
Musk even named one of his 10 children X. Musk and his ex-girlfriend, singer Grimes, have a son who was born in 2020 named X AE A-XII Musk, and a daughter who was born in 2021 named Exa Dark Sideræl Musk.
Key Background
Musk has tweeted about the fondness he has for the letter X—so much so that he brought the domain back from PayPal in 2017.The rebranding of Twitter to X.com comes just over nine months after Musk officially purchased the 2006-founded social media site and when he tweeted, “Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app.” An everything app would allow users to consume news, buy and sell things and more. Musk’s leadership at Twitter has been clouded by mass layoffs, a 59% decline in U.S. ad revenue and the onboarding of a new CEO to replace him. Musk recently reclaimed his title as the richest person in the world with a net worth of $242.3 billion. Musk’s Tesla’s stock is up 3.48% Monday.
Further Readings
Elon Musk Directs X.com To Twitter, Plans To Ditch Twitter Bird (Forbes)
Twitter Logo: Elon Musk Replaces Bird With ‘X’ In Rebrand (Forbes)
Elon Musk Reclaims Title Of World’s Richest Person (Forbes)
Twitter Tells Corporate Partners It’s Now X Corp. Amid Switch To ‘Everything App’ (Forbes)
