Musk launches deep-dive rebranding as Twitter becomes X
ALBAWABA – As Twitter becomes X, it turns out that Elon Musk has been sitting on the domain X.com for years, according to an old statement by online payment services company PayPal.
American billionaire Musk launched a radical rebranding operation Monday of the infamous social media platform, Twitter, revamping it entirely as X, news agencies reported.
But many wonder how long has Musk been sitting on his domain, X.com.
Notably, one of Musk’s first projects was called X, whose domain was X.com, which he sold to PayPal back in 2017.
X.com was an online bank co-founded by Elon Musk, Harris Fricker, Christopher Payne, and Ed Ho back in 1999 in the United States (US), which merged with Confinity Inc. in 2000.
The company that resulted from the merger was rebranded as PayPal, which remained the owner of the domain X.com for nearly 14 years.
In 2014, Musk bought the domain X.com from Paypal, a company statement said.
“We are delighted to sell the domain X.com back to its previous owner, Elon Musk," a PayPal spokesperson said in a statement given to Business Insider back in 2017.
Back then, Musk said he had no plans for the prized domain, but now that he has effectively rebranded Twitter as X.com, people are starting to wonder.
On the day of the announcement, Twitter changed the logo to X, and the blue bird is no more, except on smartphone apps, pending the next update.
Musk also announced Monday that he plans for X to take the black.
Onslaught on Musk
“The waves of discontent with Musk’s Twitter is at least in part due to his recent changes and the platform he has given to widely-disliked people with unwanted opinion,” Chief Technology Officer at Checkers Inc. Hatem Sweileh told AlBawaba.
However, he pointed out, there is also the fact that Musk undermined the once rampant data mining operations of market research and public relations companies.
“Companies used to run wild collecting data from Twitter to inform corporate and political decision-making. From public opinions to whitewashing and monitoring trends, these companies roamed free in Twitter,” Sweileh said.
“When he limited the number of tweets people can see on the platform, Musk may have wanted to protect the data on Twitter, and maybe even people’s privacy. But he was likely going capitalize on it by selling it, I think,” the tech expert said.
That would explain the recent onslaught, he noted, adding that he finds it “weird that no one is talking about limiting data mining on Twitter”.
