What Is the X Logo?
The X logo is a black capital letter X made of one thick, outlined stroke crossed by one thin stroke. It replaced the Twitter bird on 24 July 2023, when Elon Musk renamed the service X. The logo belongs to X Corp., the company that succeeded Twitter, Inc., the San Francisco social network founded in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone and Evan Williams.
The letter also appears white on a black square as the app icon. The black X is available as the X logo SVG.
X Logo Facts
| Introduced | 24 July 2023 |
| Symbol | The letter X |
| Logo type | Lettermark: a single letter X |
| Earlier mark | The Twitter bird, used in its final form from 2012 to 2023 |
| Owner | X Corp. |
What the X Logo Means
The X stands for the new name, and the new name stands for Musk's plan to turn the service into an "everything app". Musk has used the letter across his ventures. He told followers he loves the letter X, had wanted to call PayPal "X", and bought back the x.com domain, which returned to him in 2017.
Musk described the mark as a "minimalist art deco" option and said it would "probably" be refined later. He also said the logo should "embody the imperfections in us all that make us unique". Many people online pointed out that the shape closely resembles a Unicode character, U+1D54F, the mathematical double-struck capital X.
X Logo History
Twitter's first logo in 2006 was the word twitter with a bird image, a bird later found to be clip art by British designer Simon Oxley. In 2009 Biz Stone and designer Philip Pascuzzo redrew it as a more cartoon-like bird, nicknamed Larry after the basketball player Larry Bird. A 2010 redesign by the same pair dropped the cartoon details for a solid silhouette.
In 2012 Douglas Bowman simplified the silhouette into a bird modelled on the mountain bluebird. That bird stayed until July 2023.
On Sunday 23 July 2023 Musk posted that "soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds", and said that if a good enough X logo was posted that night, it would go live worldwide the next day. On Monday 24 July the X replaced the bird, and Musk shared an image of the letter projected onto the company's San Francisco headquarters. It's Nice That reported that the winning design was posted by Sawyer Merritt, who credited designer Alex Tourville.
The domain switched from twitter.com to x.com on 17 May 2024, and by then the bird had been retired from the service.
X and the Bird It Replaced
Twitter had kept a bird in its logo for 17 years, through three redraws. Bluesky, which began in 2019 as a Twitter-funded project, chose a blue butterfly in December 2023, five months after the bird went. Compare the Bluesky logo and the Instagram logo.
For more brands like X, browse our social media logos.
Frequently Asked Questions
When did Twitter change its logo to X?
On 24 July 2023, a day after Elon Musk announced that the service would bid adieu to the Twitter brand and its birds.
Who designed the X logo?
It's Nice That reported that the design was posted by Sawyer Merritt and credited to designer Alex Tourville.
Is the X logo a Unicode character?
It closely resembles U+1D54F, the mathematical double-struck capital X, which many people noticed when it launched.
What was the bird in the Twitter logo?
The final bird, drawn in 2012, was modelled on a mountain bluebird; an earlier version was nicknamed Larry after Larry Bird.