By Daniel John
He might have kept the Twitter name, but the bird has flown.
For a moment back there, it looked like Twitter might be back. Years after Elon torched the brand with the messiest rebrand in history and gave us the dumpster fire that is X, it the bird appeared to be rising from the ashes. ‘Operation Bluebird‘ was recently launched with the aim of creating a brand new social media experience. Called Twitter.
X, of course, sued. And this month, a judge ruled that Musk’s company could indeed keep the Twitter name. But not the logo. And it’s all because of Musk’s incendiary tweets from back in 2023 – specifically two of them.
On 22 July 2023, Musk tweeted that X was planning to “bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds.” One day later, he posted that the company was taking blow torches to the Twitter logo on the building.
And now, it seems those tweets have flown back to haunt him. While Musk might be keeping the Twitter name, in a 35-page document, the judge has ruled that he’s lost the right to the bird logo, as well as the word ‘Tweet’ – citing those two Musk tweets as evidence that Operation Bluebird was “likely to succeed in proving both that X Corp. discontinued the bona fide use of the Tweet mark and Bird logo and that it intends not to resume the use of the marks.”
“They kept the word. They let go of the bird, and they let go of the tweet,” TechCrunch quoted from a company statement from Operation Bluebird. It further states: “A ‘Tweet’ was never a corporation. It’s one person saying something. That word survived three years of a company trying to replace it, because the public declined to stop using it. We think that tells you who it belongs to.”
Feature image credit: X/Twitter
By Daniel John
Daniel John is Design Editor at Creative Bloq. He reports on the worlds of design, branding and lifestyle tech, and has covered several industry events including Milan Design Week, OFFF Barcelona and Adobe Max in Los Angeles. He has interviewed leaders and designers at brands including Apple, Microsoft and Adobe. Daniel’s debut book of short stories and poems was published in 2018, and his comedy newsletter is a Substack Bestseller.
