Elon Musk Rebrands Twitter As 'X,' But Has He Thought It Through
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00:00 [MUSIC]
00:07 That's right, you've been Xed.
00:09 This is not the old
00:10 Jamie Kennedy experiment.
00:11 This is one of the world's largest
00:13 messaging platforms,
00:14 or at least it used to be.
00:15 If you haven't heard by now,
00:16 Twitter owner Elon Musk has changed
00:19 the company's famous bird logo to
00:21 an X as part of a huge rebrand that
00:23 he just decided he wanted to do.
00:25 With probably no market research or
00:27 consulting his board or
00:28 employees, just based on a whim
00:30 because he likes the letter X.
00:31 He wrote Saturday,
00:33 I would have said tweeted, but
00:34 now nobody knows how to phrase it.
00:36 He Xed Saturday, he did an X.
00:38 He did one of these on Saturday,
00:40 that read, and soon we shall bid
00:42 adieu to the Twitter brand and
00:44 gradually all the birds.
00:46 He's getting rid of the Twitter
00:48 brand as your company is quickly as
00:51 fast as possible losing market
00:53 share and is losing to a brand new
00:56 competitor.
00:57 Smart thing to get rid of
00:58 the brand that is worth billions of
01:01 dollars and is known globally,
01:02 very smart.
01:03 And when he means get rid of
01:05 the brand, he really does
01:06 thoroughly mean that.
01:07 As of Monday, the domain x.com
01:09 directs users to Twitter's
01:11 homepage through twitter.com.
01:13 Though twitter.com also remains
01:15 live rather.
01:16 Branding in the mobile app has not
01:18 changed for many users yet.
01:19 Mine has not changed yet, but
01:21 I can't wait until the glorious
01:22 day, it has changed on my desktop.
01:24 So what else is changing?
01:27 Musk said Monday that tweets
01:28 will now be called Xs.
01:30 When asked what retweets would be
01:32 called, he wrote,
01:33 that concept should be rethought.
01:35 because he didn't think even as
01:37 far as, yeah, what does the other
01:39 main thing people do on our
01:40 platform, what's that going to be
01:42 called?
01:42 Re-Xed, double X,
01:45 hardcore X, triple X posting.
01:50 It's the most hardcore thing you
01:52 could do on there is just hit that
01:54 double X button.
01:56 Twitter CEO, Linda Iaccarino,
01:58 who you obviously know just has to
02:00 agree with whatever weird thing
02:02 Elon Musk decides to do,
02:03 posted about the transition
02:05 yesterday, she Xed the following.
02:07 God, that sounds weird.
02:08 It's an exceptionally rare thing
02:10 in life or in business that you get
02:12 a second chance to make another big
02:14 impression.
02:14 Twitter made one massive
02:17 impression and
02:18 changed the way we communicate.
02:19 Now X will go further,
02:21 transforming the global town
02:23 square.
02:24 X is the future of unlimited
02:25 interactivity, even they just
02:27 limited the interactivity recently.
02:29 Centered in audio, video,
02:31 messaging, payments, banking,
02:33 creating a global marketplace for
02:36 ideas, goods, services, and
02:38 opportunities, powered by AI.
02:41 X will connect us in all the ways
02:43 we're just beginning to imagine.
02:46 You get that powered by AI coming
02:48 from the man that unleashed AI
02:50 largely on us and
02:51 then recently signed a document
02:53 that said, it could stop AI.
02:55 It could ruin our entire
02:57 civilization, but also it's going
02:59 to run my company now.
03:00 So good luck with that.
03:02 According to CNN,
03:03 Twitter's shift would basically
03:05 make the site similar to China's
03:07 WeChat.
03:08 That's China's main messaging,
03:11 social media, and
03:12 mobile payment app.
03:13 This has apparently been Musk's
03:15 goal since he bought the company
03:17 late last year.
03:18 And he's making massive promises
03:20 for the new brand.
03:21 Was that his goal?
03:22 No one knows,
03:23 it seems to be shifting, but
03:25 here are his very humble and
03:26 very small plans for the new X.
03:28 >> Essentially, if done right,
03:32 the X would serve people's
03:35 financial needs to such a degree
03:37 that over time it would become,
03:40 I don't know, maybe half of
03:42 the global financial system.
03:44 >> Wow.
03:45 >> Or some big number,
03:46 I'm not sure what the number is,
03:48 but pretty big.
03:49 So it would be by far the biggest
03:51 sort of financial institution,
03:53 but like I said,
03:54 not really in the way that people
03:57 are used to thinking about banks.
03:59 Just the most efficient database
04:02 for the thing that is money.
04:06 I said least amount of fraud,
04:09 everything's real time.
04:12 And if it involves money in any
04:14 way, it can be dealt with
04:15 seamlessly on one note.
04:17 >> This could just change the
04:18 entire, it could be half the global
04:20 economic system, really?
04:22 Well, some number, maybe 2%,
04:23 nobody knows, I haven't done
04:25 numbers, I'm just kind of talking
04:27 out of my ass.
04:27 The rebrand seems maybe more to me
04:29 like a last ditch effort for
04:31 the company.
04:32 The renaming could be seen as
04:34 something of a brand overhaul,
04:36 hail Mary for the company.
04:38 Musk in recent months has
04:39 repeatedly warned that Twitter
04:41 facing steep losses in ad revenue
04:42 was on the edge of bankruptcy.
04:44 Musk recently disclosed that
04:46 the platform still has a negative
04:48 cash flow due to a 50% drop in
04:49 advertising revenue and
04:51 heavy debt loads.
04:52 I know when I'm looking for
04:54 my next financial institution,
04:56 I want one that has heavy debt
04:58 loads, has been losing revenue and
05:00 is incredibly unstable on the way
05:02 to complete bankruptcy.
05:04 That's where I put my money,
05:05 I'm a moron.
05:06 [LAUGH] >> Maybe Musk just loves
05:09 the letter X, could it be?
05:11 His second startup was x.com,
05:13 which eventually became PayPal.
05:15 Musk incorporated x into the name
05:17 of SpaceX and
05:18 Tesla's first car model.
05:20 And he recently named his new AI
05:23 startup, more AI, xAI.
05:25 Perhaps most infamously,
05:28 Musk's three-year-old son
05:32 is named xAEA-XII Musk,
05:34 which is the most normal thing
05:36 Musk has ever done.
05:37 [LAUGH] >> So
05:38 what do the people think of X?
05:40 Well, this tweet or X or I give up,
05:44 has over 165,000 likes or
05:47 favorable X feelings on
05:49 the platform.
05:51 QAnon Latifa says, gotta be honest,
05:54 this new widget design looks like
05:56 an app for a membership-only human
05:58 trafficking gentlemen's club
06:01 headquartered in Budapest.
06:03 Something that apparently QAnon
06:04 Latifa is great familiar with
06:06 the visual look of that kind of
06:08 thing.
06:08 [LAUGH] >> Several of my exes have
06:11 filed a lawsuit claiming that
06:13 that's their letter.
06:14 [LAUGH] >> Cenk.
06:18 >> I don't know if that Budapest
06:19 thing is a joke, but
06:20 I don't know how you know what
06:22 the gentleman's clubs in
06:23 Budapest are doing.
06:24 Okay, guys, here's my optimistic
06:27 way of looking at this story.
06:29 Apparently I'm going to be rich.
06:31 [LAUGH] >> Okay, because, look,
06:33 I run a small to mid-sized business
06:35 here at Young Turks,
06:37 TYT Network overall.
06:38 And wow,
06:39 am I smarter than these guys.
06:41 But apparently the bar is
06:43 incredibly low.
06:44 Jesus, this guy is among the top
06:47 two richest people in the world,
06:49 and he's a terrible businessman.
06:52 Now you say, well,
06:53 that can't be true.
06:54 I mean, he's got all that money,
06:56 and what would you know?
06:57 And he's got all those businesses,
06:58 and they're very successful.
07:00 Okay, look, Silicon Valley,
07:02 everyone was tripping over
07:03 themselves and
07:04 running into billions of dollars,
07:06 falling into billions of dollars.
07:09 Somebody did diapers.com and
07:10 walked away with half a billion
07:12 dollars.
07:13 Like, I don't know,
07:14 how about diapers.com,
07:15 10packs.com, I don't know, right?
07:17 And they all got incredibly rich,
07:19 right?
07:20 And so Elon Musk, to be fair,
07:22 is a good marketer like
07:23 Donald Trump.
07:24 He just goes out there and he's
07:26 like, yes, I'm reinventing X, and
07:28 it is now Y, okay?
07:29 And everyone's like, wow,
07:31 what a genius.
07:32 All right, I'll buy your Dogecoin.
07:33 Okay, so, but guys, this proves it.
07:37 No, unquestionably, first of all,
07:39 no one thought Twitter was worth
07:40 $44 billion.
07:41 That was mental.
07:43 We said on the show before he bought
07:44 it, we're like, no, 44 billion.
07:46 I mean, I guess.
07:48 I didn't think he'd ever go through
07:49 with the deal.
07:49 I thought he'd just take the
07:50 billion dollar loss in the contract.
07:52 Because the minute he takes
07:53 the deal, he's lost 20 billion.
07:54 To begin with, there's no way that
07:56 it was worth over 24 billion.
07:57 So we started with that.
07:58 But guys, I know it's a mid-sized
08:00 business what we have here.
08:02 But before we launch anything,
08:04 I don't mean on air.
08:05 On air commentary's fluid,
08:06 a lot of things go wrong,
08:08 unplanned, etc., right?
08:10 But when we're doing some business
08:12 move, we think it through to
08:14 know it.
08:15 We will have meetings, processes,
08:17 interdepartmental conversations,
08:20 and then launch,
08:21 because you have to be ready.
08:23 When they asked them,
08:24 what is the retweet going to be?
08:27 And he said, as Ben explained,
08:28 the concept should be rethought,
08:31 but I'm not sure.
08:32 You didn't think what you would
08:34 call a retweet?
08:34 That's like question number two.
08:37 Hey, we're not calling it a tweet,
08:39 we're calling it an X.
08:41 What do we call a retweet?
08:42 Question number two.
08:43 He didn't get to question number
08:45 two.
08:46 This guy's a moron,
08:47 total utter moron.
08:48 He's like, let's do it,
08:50 I like the letter X.
08:51 I named my kid X,
08:52 I named everything X.
08:53 Let's call it X.
08:54 [LAUGH] >> Hey,
08:55 what do we call the re-X?
08:57 He's like, who cares?
08:58 That's question number two,
08:59 I never get to question number two.
09:00 [LAUGH] >> Jesus, man.
09:03 And then look at all the things he
09:04 did wrong.
09:05 I mean, Twitter, building branches
09:08 so hard and we know it here.
09:10 And so to build a brand that's worth
09:13 billions, the brand alone,
09:14 just the name Twitter is worth
09:16 billions.
09:17 He flushed it down the toilet.
09:19 He just flushed out more
09:20 billions of dollars.
09:21 >> No, he did not,
09:22 he Xed it down the toilet.
09:23 >> He Xed it down the toilet.
09:24 >> That's their new slogan over
09:26 at Twitter, taking the bar and
09:28 moving it extremely low.
09:30 [LAUGH] >> Yeah, and
09:31 then when he says, and this is to
09:33 me for whatever reason,
09:34 this was the straw that broke
09:36 the camel's back.
09:37 X is going to go into banking.
09:39 Okay, maybe, all right,
09:41 I got an open mind, right?
09:43 And social media platforms could be
09:45 used for other reasons,
09:46 could be, right?
09:46 And he's like, and I think it's
09:48 going to be half the global banking
09:50 system.
09:51 Come on, dude,
09:53 you're not a serious person.
09:55 No serious person says that,
09:57 half the global banking system.
10:00 >> Well, not half, maybe some
10:02 number, some number, Cenk.
10:04 >> Yeah, yeah, yeah.
10:05 Yeah, that would be larger than
10:07 JP Morgan Chase Bank of America,
10:09 Wells Fargo, and all the major
10:10 banks in America, and plus some
10:12 European banks and
10:13 a Japanese bank combined.
10:15 >> Also, why would you ever start
10:18 a banking platform and call it X?
10:21 What is known globally as the sound
10:23 you get when you don't make any
10:26 money on family feud after a bad
10:28 guess.
10:29 [LAUGH] >> It's just terrible
10:32 mental imagery.
10:33 >> Yeah, no, no, this guy's
10:36 stunning, I'm having trouble saying
10:39 because I can't believe it.
10:41 >> It's astounding.
10:42 >> He is not bright,
10:45 that is unbelievable, unbelievable.
10:49 So apparently making money is not
10:51 that hard.
10:52 [LAUGH] >> So
10:52 we all got to get into this game.
10:55 So anyways, last thing,
10:56 theoretically there would be a
10:58 reason to do a rebrand if things
11:00 are going poorly and
11:01 they are Twitter, right?
11:03 But you have to pivot with your
11:05 whole strategy, right?
11:06 So you can't just be like, all
11:08 right, we're changing the name of
11:10 Twitter to X, and that'll solve
11:12 the advertiser problem that we have
11:14 because we lost 50% of our
11:15 advertisers.
11:16 Yes, but
11:17 why did your advertisers leave?
11:19 Remember, they signed on when you
11:21 were Twitter.
11:22 So they didn't leave because
11:23 they're like, god damn it,
11:24 they kept the name Twitter,
11:25 we're all leaving, right?
11:27 No, they left because Elon Musk
11:28 took over and said, yeah,
11:30 I'm going to allow racism,
11:31 anti-Semitism, every kind of
11:32 terrible thing, you're going to be
11:34 on Twitter, and I'm going to fire
11:36 everybody so there's no controls
11:37 at all, so your ads can appear on
11:39 the worst kind of content, etc.,
11:41 etc., and they're like, yeah.
11:42 No, that doesn't sound good,
11:44 we're leaving.
11:45 So did that policy change?
11:46 No, that policy didn't change.
11:48 >> That's why he's calling it that,
11:49 I just figured it out.
11:50 The X stands for extremism.
11:52 >> Yeah, and
11:53 you know what advertisers don't
11:55 like?
11:56 Extremism, so this is not a pivot,
11:59 this is not a second chance.
12:01 This is just putting a dumb name on
12:04 a thing that you didn't fix at all.
12:06 And then go, I think it's going to
12:09 take over 20, 40, no, 50,
12:11 50% of the global car market, no,
12:14 furniture market, banking market.
12:17 That's what Twitter's, I mean,
12:19 X is going to take over.
12:21 And when we take them over,
12:22 we're going to re-X them.
12:23 >> And the new CEO of X is my baby
12:26 XXEIIEIO.
12:27 >> [LAUGH] >> Congratulations to
12:31 him.
12:32 >> Wow, so it turns out the rich
12:35 are incredibly stupid.
12:37 [LAUGH] Okay, well- >> Not
12:39 incredibly stupid, X-telligent.
12:41 >> [LAUGH] He used to be
12:42 intelligent, now he's X-telligent.
12:45 Okay, apparently that's a thing.
12:47 Okay, yes, no,
12:48 it doesn't apply to all the rich.
12:50 No, it doesn't apply to all
12:51 the business people, but it is
12:53 shocking the degree of unpreparedness,
12:55 flippancy, etc, that Elon Musk has.
12:57 I mean, look, if you're going to be
13:00 charitable to him and say, maybe
13:02 he's intelligent in other ways,
13:05 this is what hubris looks like.
13:07 >> I'm just hoping that cage match
13:09 happens and there's a simultaneous
13:11 double knockout.
13:12 >> I hear you, but
13:13 now that I've seen this, it's over.
13:15 If they do the cage match,
13:16 Elon Musk is going to get
13:18 annihilated.
13:18 You know why?
13:19 because he's perpetually
13:21 overconfident.
13:22 He's going to walk in and
13:23 be like, all right, X, I got Zuckerberg.
13:26 And Zuckerberg was like, no,
13:27 you didn't, and put him in the
13:29 face, and he was like,
13:30 I didn't see that coming.
13:32 >> Musk, much like his own company,
13:34 will soon be extinct.
13:36 I can do this all day.
13:37 >> All day, he's not kidding.
13:38 [MUSIC]
13:48 [LAUGH]
13:58 [MUSIC]