New Twitter logo: Elon Musk drops bird for black-and-white 'X' as company rebrands

Elon Musk has officially changed Twitter’s logo from the iconic blue bird to a black-and-white “X” – the latest big change since he bought the company for $44 billion last year.

On Monday, Musk posted a photo of the “X” projected on Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters as the new logo appeared on the desktop version of Twitter. However, the bird is still prominent on the mobile app.

Musk announced his plan to change the logo in a series of Tweets over the weekend where he revealed the new logo and asked users to design a different logo that, if "good enough," would go live worldwide.

“And soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds,” Musk wrote on his Twitter account Sunday. 

What is 'X?'

In a series of tweets about the platform rebranding, Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino said X will transform the "global town square."

“X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services and opportunities,” she wrote. "Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine."

X.com redirects to Twitter

Musk has a history of using the letter X in his career and personal life. He is the CEO of rocket company Space Exploration Technologies Corp., which is commonly known as SpaceX. And in 1999, he founded a startup called X.com, an online financial services company now known as PayPal. The x.com web domain now redirects users to Twitter.com.

Musk's son, with the singer Grimes, is also nicknamed "X."

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Twitter changes: Musk puts cap on amount of Tweets users can read per day

Earlier this month, Musk announced "temporary limits" on the number of tweets users are able to read "to address extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation,” he wrote on Twitter. 

Musk said verified accounts were “limited to reading 6000 posts/day," while unverified accounts were limited to 600 per day. But, about two hours later, he tweeted, "Rate limits increasing soon to 8000 for verified, 800 for unverified & 400 for new unverified."

Less than an hour later, Musk sent a subsequent tweet increasing the limits to 10,000 for verified, 1,000 for unverified and 500 for new unverified users.

Contributing: Joel Shannon, Mike Snider, Jeanine Santucci, USA TODAY; The Associated Press