Twitter’s rebrand to X is effectively underway. The identify and iconic chook emblem have been stripped from the corporate’s San Francisco headquarters, and an “X” has changed the blue chook atop twitter.com. Elon Musk has stated the change is about extra than simply the identify. He desires to show the service previously referred to as Twitter into an that additionally encompasses and monetary providers.
However the rebrand may pose vital authorized and monetary challenges to the corporate, which has struggled since an advertiser exodus reduce the corporate’s advert income by greater than 50 p.c. To start out, there are tons of of firms, together with Microsoft and Meta, that personal logos for variations of “X.” That might open the door to lawsuits and different authorized complications for Musk.
Shubha Ghosh, a legislation professor at Syracuse College, says that lawsuits are “fairly widespread” when main firms rebrand and alter their names and logos. “I am type of shocked he picked X as a result of it isn’t that particular,” he says. “It is problematic within the sense that it isn’t one thing you may simply all of a sudden do with out anyone noticing and presumably suing.”
Trademark lawyer Josh Gerben that he counted nearly 900 different firms with logos on “X.” And whereas not all of them will be capable of credibly declare that the corporate previously referred to as Twitter is interfering with their model, it makes X a straightforward goal.
“There’s a few 100% chance that Twitter/X might be sued by each opportunistic and bonafide plaintiffs over the brand new identify,” Gerben . “The corporate may simply spend tens of thousands and thousands (if not $100+ million) in authorized charges and settlement prices trying to accumulate trademark registrations for ‘X’ and in coping with the litigation that’s prone to end result from the rebrand.”
For a similar causes, Twitter’s new X branding may additionally show tough to defend, particularly internationally. “The prospect that @elonmusk will be capable of efficiently register a trademark for ‘X’ for all of the providers he intends to supply, in each nation he desires to supply them in, may be very low,” Gerben wrote.
Even when Twitter is ready to fend off authorized challenges, there are severe enterprise dangers to getting rid of a model as globally recognizable as Twitter’s. Bloomberg that some analysts have estimated the identify change may wipe out billions of {dollars} in worth from a model that’s already been broken by Musk.
Ari Lightman, a professor of digital media advertising and marketing at Carnegie Mellon College, says Twitter’s issues go far past potential authorized complications introduced on by its rebrand. “There’s loads occurring that’s diminishing the worth, the utility, the distinctiveness, that Twitter, now X, has within the house,” he says pointing to the rise of Threads and different Twitter opponents. “Tweets are synonymous with this concept of running a blog, or microblogging, it’ll be very tough to resocialize an idea with the worldwide inhabitants.”
