Musk’s X completes rebranding away from Twitter

Elon Musk said Friday that his social media platform formerly known as Twitter has completed its rebranding to X, with the site’s URL now reading X.com.

The change comes about a year and a half after Musk completed his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, taking the company private and firing several of its top executives while temporarily stepping in as its chief executive.

Musk said in a tweet early Friday morning that “all core systems are now on X.com.”

A message now appears at the bottom of the site’s login page stating that while the URL has changed, privacy and data protection settings remain unchanged.

The billionaire Tesla chief, who was long known as one of Twitter’s most prominent users, disclosed in April 2022 that he had a 9.2% stake in the company, making him one of the platform’s largest individual shareholders.

Later that month, he disclosed an offer to buy and privatize Twitter at $54.20 a share in cash. Twitter accepted the deal, only for Musk to backtrack the following month and say the deal was “temporarily on hold” over purported concerns about fake accounts on the platform.

By the following summer, Musk was working to abandon the deal, prompting a lawsuit from Twitter aimed at forcing the sale under the terms of their original agreement.

Musk reversed course again in October 2022, extending his original $54.20-per-share offer once more. The acquisition was completed weeks later, and the following month, the company began laying off a significant portion of its workforce, with Musk citing a need to cut costs.

Musk served as the site’s CEO until June 2023, when he stepped into the role of chief technical officer and handed the reins to Linda Yaccarino.

Since the takeover, the platform has undergone a number of changes to its design, functionality and content moderation that have drawn criticism from users.