Billionaire Elon Musk has made a series of changes to twitter after purchasing it last year. Musk changed the app’s name to X, as well as changing the logo.
The change follows a 60% drop in ad revenue for the platform as well as layoffs for about 80% of employees. These financial troubles are not entirely Musk’s fault, as the company had not broken even in the years before Musk’s purchase.
The change has drawn criticism from marketing experts as well as consumers. Support for the change among the general public is about 13% according to a poll from Civiscience. However, weekly users of the platform are much more likely to approve of the change with a 43% approval rating.
It’s not clear if this name change will stick, with many still referring to the app by its original name. The re-brand to X is part of a larger shift in focus for the company as Musk strives to create an everything app and draw in new users.
An everything app combines many different features and places them on one platform. Currently X is only a social media app but the company plans to add features similar to Apple Pay as well as music, food delivery, and shopping.
This push to create an all encompassing super app has not been without controversy. Many have concerns about privacy and the power it would give just one company.
“It’s weird,” Lindsay Donovan (’25) said. “Why would I want to go shopping on twitter.”
Although everything apps aren’t popular in America, many Asian countries have already adopted these platforms. In China an app called Wechat is common for texting, social media, shopping and mobile payments. The app Wechat is owned by the company Tencent Holdings. The Chinese government does own shares of the company giving them some control over business decisions.
Many of the changes Musk has made to X as the CEO and owner have been failures. The paid verification system gave way to trolls and impersonators. Musk’s promotion of free speech has drawn criticism from the Anti Defamation League for the spike in antisemitism on the platform and recently Musk has stepped down as CEO. It’s unclear whether X will be the future of social media or an unsuccessful experiment.
