AI: Twitter to X works
As I said in a post barely two weeks ago,
“When the history books are written, Elon Musk will be recorded as a technology entrepreneur with an unprecedented, admirable record of ‘against-the-odds’ execution (Tesla, SpaceX reusable rockets and Starlink satellite internet, and presumably others), as well as a super-power sized capability for global self-promotion.” (cage-match, anyone?)
That super-power was on full display this week, as Elon Musk made x.com point to Twitter.com. And started erasing the venerable brand and blue birds from Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters, and projecting the new name and logo into the building at night.
You know it’s serious when it impacts a Silicon Valley tech company’s conference rooms, as the NYTimes observed:
“Conference rooms were renamed to words with X in them, including “eXposure,” “eXult” and “s3Xy,”
A global social media brand that hit the marketing holy grail of ‘capturing lightning in a bottle’, and becoming a verb, gets to start from scratch. And do so with Elon pomp and circumstance, and at global scale.
Much has and will be written about why this may be one of the most irrational, impulsive and indulgent things the ‘world’s richest man’ can do after plunking down $44 billion plus for his own online plaything (and grow his global followers to almost 150 million with a little help from algorithms).
He has openly wanted to do the name change even before he pulled the trigger in buying Twitter, and he’s had a long declared affinity for all things ‘X’ since the 1990s.
“Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app.”
And in hindsight, it may be one of the savviest things Elon Musk has done. And he’s done a few.
Playing devil’s advocate to the current Sturm und Drang (“Storm and Stress”) over the historic name change, here are five reasons why this move by Elon makes eminent sense. And it does tie to AI (wait for it).
FREE, UNLIMITED GLOBAL PR:. This ties directly to Elon’s aforementioned super-power. He built the world’s leading EV car company with no advertising dollars. He’s about to do the same building his new AI driven ‘whatever he wants’, ‘global public square’ app. Media companies online and off, will give the ex-Twitter company all the publicity and coverage it will ever need. He’s done it already with cars and rockets. And people around the world will not stop talking about it. Earned media indeed.
BLANK SLATE: Talk about starting with a clean sheet of paper. Even Twitter’s almost as famous co-founder Jack Dorsey said "the Twitter brand carries a lot of baggage" and that all that matters is the utility it provides, not the name.” A fresh lump of clay indeed, to be spun around endlessly.
BRAND SYNERGIES: From Tesla’s s3Xy cars, to SpaceX, to his newest AI Venture, xAI, there are corporate synergies galore to leverage. All stakeholders, from investors to partners to customers, are of course leveraged with this cross-brand consistency.
FACEBOOK DID IT: Let’s not forget another iconic Tech founder, Mark Zuckerberg re-branded an older and almost as well known company globally to Meta not too long ago! Four letters instead of one, but same direction on the Alphabet. Speaking of which, two other iconic tech co-founders, Brin and Page, did the same with an even older global tech brand for their parent company. Definitely a pattern here.
SOON xAI BECOMES JUST X: Given that Elon wants X to be the ‘everything App’, and apps are just software, and “AI is eating software eating the world’, it follows that Elon’s new AI company xAI could just revert to X. And do so in the not too distant future. An inevitable flywheel with its own set of reinforcement loops.
So there you have it.
Changing the name from Twitter to X is so much a Feature, not a Bug. It all comes together if one just squints right. Stay tuned.
Thanks. All good points. It’s clear Elon has had a plan around where he can take X for a while now. There are elements of emulation aspirations (‘super-app’ alike Tencent’s WeChat), to financial services as per his original ideas in 1999. Key difference VS every other company is that he marches to a different drum and timeline than his peers, and has the resources to take his time. He can navigate advertising dips and debt tranches as needed. Also, AI tech is way early and he knows it. But again he knows how to play that tune and keep media and investors focused to the Game-plan he has in mind. See how he’s stretched out Full Self Driving for over a decade now without delivering it, and yet likely generated over $2 billion in revenues for that aspirational AI. More than what any AI company has done to date, including OpenAI and Microsoft. Thanks again.
Congrats on the new endeavor!
The Earned media strategy certainly works, like it did for Trump. But the idea of X / X.com has a lot of baggage. It's not exactly a blank slate and he doesn't even own the IP rights to the use case (META might, MS possibly). Rolling out new rebranding poorly isn't a strategy, it's just a way to destroy brand equity. Corporate Seppuku is the phrase that I've heard from a few folks.
Brand synergies were there before he rebranded, he just made it harder not easier. If you think that companies don't advertise today, why do you think they will tie their brands (fate) to the new Twitter? Advertising is much easier and that's not going well. Name change doesn't make that different. Brands like stability and unless Black Rifle Coffee is going to spend big bucks, hard to imagine the marketing dollars being there for any big initiatives.
Facebook wanted to get rid of the declining Facebook brand. But the iconic Twitter brand was really only declining in the past year. I don't really say Alphabet, I say Google. There is a pattern, but it feels like New Coke.
Everyone is an AI company. But it's also about timing. FedNow exists today- there is no opportunity to create x-paypal again. No one is looking for yet another entrant into the crowded AI race. I can't imagine that my "digital twin", trained on my tweets, is what I want to put out in the world to interact with the rest of humanity.
Be well,
ace