Monday, July 24th 2023

Elon Musk Announces that Twitter Will Change Name to X

After having paid US$44 billion for Twitter, it appears Elon Musk isn't happy with Twitter being Twitter and is now getting ready to change the name of the social media platform to X. For those that aren't familiar with Elon Musk's company history, X was his online bank that preceded PayPal, or rather X.com, a domain name that is still owned by Elon Musk and currently redirects to Twitter. It appears that Elon Musk and Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino have big plans for X, at least according to several posts by the Twitter CEO.

Yaccaranio in a post on Twitter states that "X is the future state of unlimited interactivity - centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking - creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities. Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we're just beginning to imagine." Make of this what you want, but it appears that Twitter is about to go through some major changes, some that had already been mentioned by Musk as early as last year. Time will tell if this will be a direction that Twitter's users want things to go, or if the platform will end up dying a death of a thousand cuts.
Sources: @elonmusk on Twitter, @lindayacc on Twitter
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178 Comments on Elon Musk Announces that Twitter Will Change Name to X

#76
Nater
dragontamer5788I never called him a moron.

I've called him a Conman, Bullshit artist, and more. Elon is a fake engineer for sure, akin to the Edison patent problems from a century ago. He's smart, but in a way you're not describing. Elon Musk is the kind of large-scale salesman who can sell people a dream of going to Mars and terraforming / replacing that atmosphere as a viable solution to Earth's Global Warming. (Ignoring the fact that replacing Earth's atmosphere of CO2 would be far easier than trying to transport tons-of-Oxygen to Mars, and then trying to warm up Mars instead).

That's the kind of skills Elon Musk has, the ability to sell bullshit to a widespread audience. The tech to terraform Mars and make a reasonable colony over there simply doesn't exist, and if it did exist, we should use it to replace Earth's atmosphere instead and solve 2-degrees Celsius of global warming (rather than the 80+ C degrees we need to solve to make Mars livable: Average Mars temperature is -60C).

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As I've stated: Elon Musk's key innovation is rewriting our society into believing that Elon Musk is a founder of Tesla. Or that exploding rockets are successful tests. Or that Full Self Driving is around the corner. Etc. etc. etc. Its simply bullshit-artistry. He's really good at it, haven't you noticed?

Look, Elon Musk is the kind of guy who sells Tesla shares for years straight while promising that their share prices will keep going up. If he really thought that TSLA share prices were going up, why would he ever sell?
All this doubt for Elon from a guy who still believes in Global Warming? Don't you know it's "Climate Change" now?

It'd be bullshit con artist if the cars DID NOT drive themselves at all. If they DIDN'T get 400 miles to the charge. If they DIDN'T get their charging plug adopted by essentially the entire industry. If the rockets NEVER landed without a pilot and if they ALWAYS exploded.

If Elon was a conman he never would have bothered with Twitter.
Posted on Reply
#77
dragontamer5788
NaterIt'd be bullshit con artist if the cars DID NOT drive themselves at all.

These are cars that crash into the side of semi-trucks on a regular basis. They literally are blind to what's in front of them, even more-so now that they've LOL removed RADAR and are selling it as "Vision Only future of AI" (aka: more bullshit).
If they DIDN'T get 400 miles to the charge.
-30% when the temperature is above 100F. And -30% loss when its too cold. Sooooo... basically everywhere outside of San Francisco, its got way, way, way less advertised range. Its more proof of his bullshittery.

Etc. etc. etc.
If Elon was a conman he never would have bothered with Twitter.
You know he tried to bullshit his way out of the contract of buying Twitter, right? It only happened because the judge forced him. And now he's bullshitted you into thinking this was his masterplan all along. We all knew in August 2022 that he didn't want Twitter anymore and that this deal for $44 Billion was a bad deal.

The only reason he ever bought Twitter was that a judge finally got tired of his bullshit and forced him to execute upon a signed contract. That's it. And now we have to deal with Elon Musk's bullshit into thinking that he knows what he's doing on this whole Twitter fiasco. But that's okay, we've reached the far more interesting, and entertaining, arc of this situation. The mask is coming off and more-and-more people are realizing the truth and wisening up to Elon's Bullshit.

He had a good run though, I'll give ya that.
Posted on Reply
#78
DaddyDanjer
If Twitter is now X, are twitter videos now Xvideos??
Posted on Reply
#79
caroline!
TheLostSwedePowered by AI
Ugh. The new "crypto/blockchain".
the54thvoidI'd be dumb not to use it.
Count me as dumb.

I'm only in a few specific Discord servers but that's all. And forums of course. Big social media is to argue about politics and the current thing on mainstream media, either by engaging in an endless flame war or sinking yourself in an echo chamber where you're constantly reassured by a flock that believes in the same things you do.
Sure there might be interesting groups but in the end it all comes down to following the same people you know irl, otherwise it's screaming into the void.
Posted on Reply
#80
A Computer Guy
dragontamer5788
You know he tried to bullshit his way out of the contract of buying Twitter, right? It only happened because the judge forced him. And now he's bullshitted you into thinking this was his masterplan all along. We all knew in August 2022 that he didn't want Twitter anymore and that this deal for $44 Billion was a bad deal.

The only reason he ever bought Twitter was that a judge finally got tired of his bullshit and forced him to execute upon a signed contract. That's it. And now we have to deal with Elon Musk's bullshit into thinking that he knows what he's doing on this whole Twitter fiasco. But that's okay, we've reached the far more interesting, and entertaining, arc of this situation. The mask is coming off and more-and-more people are realizing the truth and wisening up to Elon's Bullshit.

He had a good run though, I'll give ya that.
Remember Twitter was highly overvalued and a significant number of employees enjoying espresso lattes were simply not needed.

After thinking about it for several hours I think the X likely is symbolic as in he is going to kill all the birds implying the mockingbird media powered by forces use using twitter as a political weapon that prevents the platform from providing a place for civil discourse.
Posted on Reply
#81
dragontamer5788
A Computer GuyRemember Twitter was highly overvalued and a significant number of employees enjoying espresso lattes were simply not needed.
Remember that firing 50% of Twitter was Fake News spread by Elon Musk + his friend Ligma. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahul_Ligma

Of course, now that the months have passed, we now know that the fake news claim by Rahul Ligma is all fake, and that Elon Musk intended to fire 80% of staff as part of his master plan to reinvent Twitter. Those employees were just sitting around drinking coffee or whatever and obviously not needed.

Or as that old novel liked to put it: Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.
Posted on Reply
#82
Dr. Dro
Bomby569He overpaid for Twitter, a money shredding machine, because of a stupid internet post. Proceeded to alienate more then half of the advertisers, alienated a lot of the users. Gave Meta a window to capture a lot of their users. It is really not to a good start. We'll see how it ends.
Is it, really? Meta completely botched this window. I believe it is a company that is fated to wane, similarly to Yahoo!. It may not fully die off, but the truth is that the younger generations shun Facebook, they have this perception that it's a website where their parents and grandparents go to bicker, not where you'll find the coolest, trendiest things like you do on Twitter and TikTok. The truth is, Meta's zenith is long since past, and the simple fact that this company is now called Meta was in direct acknowledgment that the Facebook brand had begun to weaken.

I reckon that by now, Mark Zuckerberg realizes that acquiring Instagram may have very well been his best investment, it will keep Meta afloat as the "metaverse" he drummed up has ultimately failed to spring, WhatsApp, despite its strong user-base is ultimately not even close to a profitable venture and their main product, Facebook, has a negative perception amongst newer generations and has been abandoned by a large amount of people who don't agree with the overbearing "community standards" - something that Musk's Twitter has absolutely aced so far.

These platforms hold immense power, think about it - not even with YouTube's popularity and the integration of the Shorts feature has stopped TikTok's exponential growth. Something similar happened with pre-Musk Twitter, the former board of directors made of the platform hostile to a certain segment of individuals, putting intense pressure on them with a series of high-profile expulsions intended to clearly state that they were not welcome to stay and eventually went on to create Twitter clones of their own, none of which had the slightest impact in the active user base.

It's a numbers' game, Musk is anything but a fool, he is acutely aware that people kvetching about Twitter no longer being an eco chamber and how evil he may be is not going to have anyone leave the platform, especially not those who would raise their hand against it - he realizes that to drum up anti-Musk, anti-Twitter sentiment, these influencers require the one thing that they are actively campaigning against - their reach, which is comprised of active Twitter account holders. This means that the numbers game was won before it even started, the more page views and interactions, the more likely an user is to stick by, regardless of their current bias.

This is the same treatment that Reddit gave to those who disagreed with their policy changes regarding APIs, they simply didn't budge and told them to deal with it, as they know that there is no replacement for Reddit and their user base was going to be using Mastodon and the fediverse for exactly one week before they all came back grumbling at their feet again, seeking their fix.

X merely stamps it - the old Twitter is dead, all hail the new Twitter.
Posted on Reply
#83
dragontamer5788
Dr. DroIs it, really? Meta completely botched this window. I believe it is a company that is fated to wane, similarly to Yahoo!. It may not fully die off, but the truth is that the younger generations shun Facebook, they have this perception that it's a website where their parents and grandparents go to bicker, not where you'll find the coolest, trendiest things like you do on Twitter and TikTok. The truth is, Meta's zenith is long since past, and the simple fact that this company is now called Meta was in direct acknowledgment that the Facebook brand had begun to weaken.
Facebook literally made $117 Billion in revenue while Twitter is easily going to be losing $2+ Billion this year.

There's a reason why Facebook can piss $25 Billion into a failed project like Metaverse and completely survive no sweat. They print so much money its insane. Even dozens-of-billions of dollars of mistake is no problem to them.





Facebook literally loses more money in shitty projects that will never work (ie: Metaverse) than Twitter can make in revenue. The difference between the two platforms is unfathomably wide.

--------------

By revenue, Facebook/Meta is on the scale of 2300% the size of Twitter, and that was 2021-era Twitter with $5 Billion/year revenue.

What do you think Twitter's revenue this year, 2023 will be? They'll be lucky to get $2.5 Billion. Ad revenue has collapsed and everyone knows it.

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EDIT: Look, I don't like Facebook/Meta either, but... the comparison between the two companies is insane. The fairy tale character Thumbelina was IIRC ~3-inches tall, and compared against someone 23x her size it'd be a typical 6-foot person. That's the kind of comparison you're making.
Posted on Reply
#84
Dr. Dro
dragontamer5788Facebook literally made $170 Billion in revenue while Twitter is easily going to be losing $2+ Billion this year.

There's a reason why Facebook can piss $25 Billion into a failed project like Metaverse and completely survive no sweat. They print so much money its insane. Even dozens-of-billions of dollars of mistake is no problem to them.





Facebook literally loses more money in shitty projects that will never work (ie: Metaverse) than Twitter can make in revenue. The difference between the two platforms is unfathomably wide.

--------------

By revenue, Facebook/Meta is on the scale of 2300% the size of Twitter, and that was 2021-era Twitter with $5 Billion/year revenue.

What do you think Twitter's revenue this year, 2023 will be? They'll be lucky to get $2.5 Billion. Ad revenue has collapsed and everyone knows it.

----------

EDIT: Look, I don't like Facebook/Meta either, but... the comparison between the two companies is insane. The fairy tale character Thumbelina was IIRC ~3-inches tall, and compared against someone 23x her size it'd be a typical 6-foot person. That's the kind of comparison you're making.
Agree with you but sometimes, the sheer monetary value does not tell the whole story. Twitter is wildly powerful, and it was never as large as Facebook to begin with. Twitter may, in fact, be the Musk empire's loss leader, and if he manages to make a loss leader operable? That would be quite the reversal.
Posted on Reply
#85
dragontamer5788
Dr. DroAgree with you but sometimes, the sheer monetary value does not tell the whole story. Twitter is wildly powerful, and it was never as large as Facebook to begin with. Twitter may, in fact, be the Musk empire's loss leader, and if he manages to make a loss leader operable? That would be quite the reversal.
Twitter literally made a profit in EDIT: Looks like 2019, sorry, was off one year (said 2020 initially). But it was profitable in both 2018 and 2019.

This whole problem is because of how Elon Musk decided to borrow $13 Billion to buy Twitter in the first place. Even if he makes Twitter "somewhat profitable", there's the question of making it profitable enough to make back the $44 Billion he borrowed+spent on it. A feat that I don't think will happen.

Elon Musk didn't have to structure this deal as a $13 Billion loan + Equity. This whole situation is a result of his own financial engineering. If an Arsonist manages to put out his own fire that's definitely a feat, but not one we should celebrate.
Posted on Reply
#86
Vayra86
Prima.VeraHe (Musk) knows better than all of us blokes what he is doing.
He is not the richest man alive for doing silly things ;)
Just good timing mostly, as we will likely see in due time. Luck runs out.
Posted on Reply
#87
Bomby569
Dr. DroIs it, really? Meta completely botched this window. I believe it is a company that is fated to wane, similarly to Yahoo!. It may not fully die off, but the truth is that the younger generations shun Facebook, they have this perception that it's a website where their parents and grandparents go to bicker, not where you'll find the coolest, trendiest things like you do on Twitter and TikTok. The truth is, Meta's zenith is long since past, and the simple fact that this company is now called Meta was in direct acknowledgment that the Facebook brand had begun to weaken.

I reckon that by now, Mark Zuckerberg realizes that acquiring Instagram may have very well been his best investment, it will keep Meta afloat as the "metaverse" he drummed up has ultimately failed to spring, WhatsApp, despite its strong user-base is ultimately not even close to a profitable venture and their main product, Facebook, has a negative perception amongst newer generations and has been abandoned by a large amount of people who don't agree with the overbearing "community standards" - something that Musk's Twitter has absolutely aced so far.

These platforms hold immense power, think about it - not even with YouTube's popularity and the integration of the Shorts feature has stopped TikTok's exponential growth. Something similar happened with pre-Musk Twitter, the former board of directors made of the platform hostile to a certain segment of individuals, putting intense pressure on them with a series of high-profile expulsions intended to clearly state that they were not welcome to stay and eventually went on to create Twitter clones of their own, none of which had the slightest impact in the active user base.

It's a numbers' game, Musk is anything but a fool, he is acutely aware that people kvetching about Twitter no longer being an eco chamber and how evil he may be is not going to have anyone leave the platform, especially not those who would raise their hand against it - he realizes that to drum up anti-Musk, anti-Twitter sentiment, these influencers require the one thing that they are actively campaigning against - their reach, which is comprised of active Twitter account holders. This means that the numbers game was won before it even started, the more page views and interactions, the more likely an user is to stick by, regardless of their current bias.

This is the same treatment that Reddit gave to those who disagreed with their policy changes regarding APIs, they simply didn't budge and told them to deal with it, as they know that there is no replacement for Reddit and their user base was going to be using Mastodon and the fediverse for exactly one week before they all came back grumbling at their feet again, seeking their fix.

X merely stamps it - the old Twitter is dead, all hail the new Twitter.
i really don't care who wins. But Mark did won this round against Musk. The future i guess will remain in the hands of the ones using that crap, and i can't predict what that bunch will do
Posted on Reply
#88
Dr. Dro
Bomby569i really don't care who wins. But Mark did won this round against Musk. The future i guess will remain in the hands of the ones using that crap, and i can't predict what that bunch will do
Well, true, we're not stakeholders or anything, just thought I'd put down my own thoughts on how I see things.

I have accounts on both services, but I must admit I use and like Twitter way, way more. Then again, it's like, fun, y'know. I can spend hours scrolling through the large variety of posts ranging from technology to my favorite art, and with just a healthy dose of naughty things thrown in the middle :D
Posted on Reply
#89
Bomby569
Dr. DroI can spend hours scrolling through the large variety of posts ranging from technology to my favorite art, and with just a healthy dose of naughty things thrown in the middle :D
it's called doom scrolling for a reason
Posted on Reply
#90
Wirko
Bomby569i really don't care who wins. But Mark did won this round against Musk. The future i guess will remain in the hands of the ones using that crap, and i can't predict what that bunch will do
Eh. Every new generation of users is more information-overloaded and demands something more toxic, fomo-causing and adhd-inducing to grab their attention. Whoever can give them all that will win.
Posted on Reply
#93
dragontamer5788
ChomiqThey can't even change the sign right.
That ain't nothing.

about.twitter.com/en/who-we-are/brand-toolkit



Twitter still hasn't updated its branding page. I'm F5ing to see how long it takes for Elon Musk to recognize this contradiction.

The PDF is 10MB long. But here's a particular page I'm sure we will all find funny. Remember, I grabbed this today, July 25th, days after the X-"rebanding" started.

Posted on Reply
#95
trsttte
DaddyDanjerIf Twitter is now X, are twitter videos now Xvideos??
Probably something that will be decided in court, xvideos twitter account did get banned right after the rebrand and there are "news" claiming twitter**coffcoff**X intends to call the video side of things xvideos.

There's also the issue that X is super generic and hundreds of companies hold different trademarks on it

www.reuters.com/technology/problem-with-x-meta-microsoft-hundreds-more-own-trademarks-new-twitter-name-2023-07-25/
Posted on Reply
#96
claes
When disrupting the market really just means disrupting your own business
Posted on Reply
#97
P4-630
trsttteProbably something that will be decided in court, xvideos twitter account did get banned right after the rebrand and there are "news" claiming twitter**coffcoff**X intends to call the video side of things xvideos.

There's also the issue that X is super generic and hundreds of companies hold different trademarks on it

www.reuters.com/technology/problem-with-x-meta-microsoft-hundreds-more-own-trademarks-new-twitter-name-2023-07-25/
Hmmm, you didn't noticed my post above yours mentioning the same?....
Posted on Reply
#98
trsttte
P4-630Hmmm, you didn't noticed my post above yours mentioning the same?....
I did not :D
Posted on Reply
#100
dragontamer5788
Why_Mepetapixel.com/2023/07/24/threads-daily-active-users-fall-by-staggering-70/
Oh no. Threads only has 30-million users after 2 weeks! They're obviously going to collapse.

I mean, I'm over here happily sitting in Lemmy land with somewhere between 100k and 1MM users. Its a good enough community in practice. We will see if Lemmy works out, but the numbers here are pretty large, all else considered.

I personally don't think that Twitter will go to zero users. My main argument is that Twitter is now losing nearly $3 Billion/year (estimated, see my previous posts). Facebook/Meta is making $20+ Billions/year in contrast, so I don't see any reason why they'd give up this year, or next. With such a deficit in $$$money, Twitter's ability as a company to continue existing is... well... at crisis levels. Even if Elon Musk is a $hundred-billionaire, its still embarassing for him to hold onto a company losing $3ish Billion/year, and there's been no move this year to suggest that Elon Musk has the mental capacity to fix this problem.
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