Explained | Why is Elon Musk so obsessed with the letter ‘X’?

Washington

Elon Musk has given Twitter a major makeover, replacing the iconic blue bird logo with the letter “X”.

Hours before the announcement, Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino said that ‘X’ is “the future state of unlimited interactivity” and that it “will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine".

“For years, fans and critics alike have pushed Twitter to dream bigger, to innovate faster, and to fulfil our great potential. X will do that and more. We’ve already started to see X take shape over the past 8 months through our rapid feature launches, but we’re just getting started.”

“There’s absolutely no limit to this transformation. X will be the platform that can deliver, well….everything. Elon Musk and I are looking forward to working with our teams and every single one of our partners to bring X to the world.”

The decision to rebrand the social media platform is just one of the many steps in Musk’s grandiose plan to make Twitter, or rather “X”, an all-in-one application, which he calls "the everything app"— that can be used for digital transactions, booking a cab and other financial services, just like China’s WeChat.

The makeover was expected as Musk has betting big on the social media platform after he bought it for a record $44 billion last year.

However, there is one interesting aspect of the Twitter makeover. Elon Musk’s obsession with the letter ‘X’. Turns out there is a historical context to it.

Before buying Twitter in 2022, Musk had said, “Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app”.

In April this year, a filing in a federal court case in California revealed Twitter had been renamed to X Corp. In the same month, Musk tweeted only the letter ‘X’ to his millions of followers.

Musk’s first venture

In 1999, Musk came out with his first venture known as X.com—an online banking and financial services platform. A year later, he was forced to step down as the CEO of the firm.

“Everyone tried to talk him out of naming the company that back then because of the sexual innuendos, but he really liked it and stuck with it,” said Ashlee Vance, the author of Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, about the X.com domain, according to NPR.

Three years later, Musk earned $165 million when the site, which was merged with PayPal by then, was bought by eBay.

Author Walter Isaacson also shared his thoughts on the whole matter by quoting excerpts from his upcoming biography on Musk.

 “His concept for X.com was grand. It would be a one-stop everything-store for all financial needs: banking, digital purchases, checking, credit cards, investments, and loans. Transactions would be handled instantly, with no waiting for payments to clear. His insight was that money is simply an entry into a database, and he wanted to devise a way that all transactions were securely recorded in real-time.”

Musk would later buy the domain X.com back from PayPal in 2017. That site now directs people to Twitter. 

“Thanks PayPal for allowing me to buy back X.com! No plans right now, but it has great sentimental value to me,” Musk wrote on Twitter in 2017, 

Notably, that was the first time Musk used the letter X as the domain name, but it was not his last.

‘X’ doesn’t stop there

Musk also affixed the letter “X” to his space company’s brand name.

SpaceX, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, was founded by Musk in 2002.

The company recently launched its $3 billion test flight which was deemed a great success even after it burst into a spectacular ball of flames.

And even in Musk’s “bestselling” Tesla car, the letter X can be witnessed.

Model X, launched in 2015, was the “first SUV ever to earn 5-star safety ratings in every category and sub-category in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s tests,” as per the website.

And it doesn’t end here. The letter X also features in the name of Elon Musk’s son — X AE A-XII. The billionaire recently celebrated his 4th birthday.

Earlier this month, Musk launched his artificial intelligence startup named xAI. According to the company’s website, its goal is to “understand the true nature of the universe”.

But why X?

Musk earlier said that he chose “X” to replace Twitter’s brand because he wanted something that “embodies the imperfections in us all that make us unique”.

Canadian artist Claire Boucher, who shares two children with now separated Musk, recently explained why her baby is named ‘X’. She says it connotes the “unknown variable” in algebra.

According to writer Leon F Seltzer, the word ‘X’ has become the most “nihilistic” of letters.

In his piece for Psychology Today, Seltzer suggested that Musk appreciates X’s malleability—how it can be birth and death, cancellation and multiplication, nothing and everything.

(With inputs from agencies)

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