Elon Musk's X sheds the last of its Twitter branding by changing web address to x.com
The social media platform formerly known as Twitter has officially transitioned its website address from Twitter.com to X.com, closing a chapter in its history.
This final change comes after the billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk acquired the platform back in 2022 and initiated a rebranding process, renaming it simply "X".
Musk posted the news of the switch with a minimalist post on the platform that read "All core systems are now on X.com".
Typing "twitter.com" in a web browser now redirect users to the platform’s new URL address.
The address redirect followed several changes including the significant overhaul of the iconic blue bird logo associated with Twitter since its creation, replaced by a black and white "X" in July 2023.
Of course, this latest development was met with some pushback from diehard Twitter fans with one user calling it "the thing exactly one person wanted" and another joking that he "got detention back in middle school for going to a similar link on the library computer".
Why the "X" rebrand?
Beyond the memes poking fun at the rebranding, there’s a reason for the change: Musk’s vision for an "everything app".
He envisions a "super app," similar to those popular in Asia - like WeChat in China - offering a vast array of services within a single platform, handling everything from communication to financial transactions.
The billionaire owner of brands such as Tesla and SpaceX has openly acknowledged that this is where his inspiration comes from for X.
Potential functionalities for X could include payments, something as Musk has already dabbled with when co-founded X.com in 1999 which later became PayPal in 2001.
In his post on Friday, Musk integrated a logo visually similar to his former online financial services company.
Musk stepped down as CEO of PayPal in 2002 but remained a major shareholder. In 2017, he then bought the X.com domain name from PayPal.
Whether X will achieve "everything app" status remains to be seen as the platform has lost users since Musk acquired it.
As of February this year, its user base had contracted by 23 per cent since November 2022, according to data from app-monitoring company Sensor Tower.