Elon Musk completed an acquisition of Twitter in October 2022; Musk acted as CEO of Twitter until June 2023 when he was succeeded by Linda Yaccarino. Twitter was rebranded to X on July 23, 2023, and its domain name changed from twitter.com to x.com on May 17, 2024. Yaccarino resigned on July 9, 2025.
Now operating as X, the platform closely resembles its predecessor but includes additional features such as long-form texts, account monetization options, audio-video calls, integration with xAI's Grok chatbot, job search, and a repurposing of the platform's verification system as a subscription premium. Several legacy Twitter features were removed from the site after Musk acquired Twitter, including Circles, NFT profile pictures, and the experimental pronouns in profiles feature. Musk's aims included transforming X into a "digital town square" and an "everything app" akin to WeChat.
Twitter/X has faced significant controversy under Musk's ownership. Issues such as the release of the Twitter Files, suspension of ten journalists' accounts, and labeling media outlets as "state-affiliated" and restricting their visibility have sparked criticism. Despite Musk stepping down as CEO, the platform has continued to face criticism over issues such as viral misinformation, hate speech (especially antisemitism), and child pornography. In response to allegations it deemed unfair, X Corp. has pursued legal action against nonprofit organizations Media Matters and the Center for Countering Digital Hate.
History
Elon Musk initiated the acquisition of Twitter, Inc. on April 14, 2022, and completed it on October 28, 2022. His goal was to transform Twitter into X, an all-encompassing app inspired by WeChat. By April, Musk had become Twitter's largest shareholder with a 9.2 percent stake and made an unsolicited $44 billion offer on April 14, which Twitter's board initially resisted before accepting on April 25. In July, Musk attempted to terminate the deal, citing Twitter's failure to address spam bot accounts. Twitter sued him, with a trial set for mid-October. Musk then reversed his decision and completed the acquisition on October 28. He became the new owner and CEO, took Twitter private, merged it into X Corp., and fired several top executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal. Following Twitter's change in ownership, Musk renamed several features to remove references to bird-oriented terminology, including renaming "Birdwatch" to "Community Notes". In October, Musk ordered Twitter employees to revamp multiple aspects of the program within one week, enlisting employees from his other companies, including Tesla, the Boring Company, and Neuralink, as well as investors Jason Calacanis and Sriram Krishnan. To meet these deadlines, many staff members were told to work longer hours.
Musk is not the sole owner of X Corp.; it is owned by artificial intelligence company xAI, which acquired it from its previous owner X Holdings Corp. (XHC) on March 28, 2025. xAI, including X, was in turn acquired by SpaceX on February 2, 2026. Prior to the xAI acquisition, investors in XHC included entities linked to Bill Ackman, Larry Ellison, Marc Andreessen, and Sean Combs. The court filing also reflects that over 20 Fidelity-associated funds, trusts and pools were investors in XHC.
Post-acquisition
On July 23, 2023, Musk announced the rebranding of Twitter to X, which started when the X.com domain (formerly associated with PayPal) began redirecting to Twitter; the logo was changed from the bird to the X the next day, and the platform's official main and associated accounts also began using the letter X within their handles. The @x handle was originally owned by photographer Gene X Hwang, who registered it in 2007. Hwang had expressed willingness to sell the handle, but received an email stating that the company was taking it, and was not offered financial benefits. The Android app's name and icon were changed to X on Google Play by July 27; the same change went live on the App Store on July 31 after Apple granted an exception to its minimum character length of 2. Around that time, some more elements of the Twitter branding were removed from the web version, including tweets being renamed to "posts".
The rebrand was described as unusual, given that Twitter's brand was already strong internationally, with words like "tweet" having entered common language. The rebranding was criticized on the basis that the trademarkability of the name and logo is weak: there are almost 900 companies in the U.S. that own an X trademark, including an existing social media-related logo owned by Meta Platforms. The X logo uses a blackboard bold X, a character that has appeared in mathematical textbooks since the 1970s and that is included in Unicode as U+1D54F 𝕏 MATHEMATICAL DOUBLE-STRUCK CAPITAL X. A few days after the rebrand took effect, an AP Stylebook update recommended that journalists refer to the platform as "X, formerly known as Twitter". By September 2023, Ad Age, citing The Harris Poll, noted that the rebranding had not publicly caught on, with the majority of users still referring to X as "Twitter". On May 17, 2024, Musk announced that the URL was officially changed from twitter.com to x.com, with the domain transition being one of the more awkward aspects of Musk's rebranding the company.
In 2024, Musk moved the headquarters of X to Bastrop, Texas, a town near Austin.
Social media sites including X came under questioning for their handling of disinformation related to the 2024 United Kingdom riots. Musk criticised UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer amid the riots, saying "Shouldn't you be concerned about attacks on *all* communities?". Responding to a post with footage of the disorder that said the riots were due to the "effects of mass migration and open borders", Musk tweeted "Civil war is inevitable", and his comments were condemned by Starmer's official spokesman. Having previously restored Tommy Robinson's account, Musk interacted with him on the platform, and went on to refer to Starmer as "two-tier Keir" and ask the protection of communities in Britain. Musk also promoted a conspiracy theory that the UK government was planning to build detainments camps in the Falkland Islands to hold rioters. The UK's Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology Peter Kyle said that in practice dealing with large tech companies and their leaders can be more like negotiating with foreign states than normal businesses.
In December 2024, the X website was redesigned, giving it a more modern and simplified look alongside removing the last elements of the Twitter branding (such as blue colors). Musk argued in February 2025 that X's Community Notes "is increasingly being gamed by governments & legacy media", and that he was taking steps to "fix" it. The statement came after Community Notes contradicted Musk's claims on astronauts and legacy media, and also contradicted claims that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was unpopular among Ukrainians.
In 2025 the Wall Street Journal reported that Musk had used the platform to solicit an influencer he had never met in person to have his child. Following their rejection of his offer he unfollowed their account and their impressions and revenue declined sharply.
Layoffs and mass resignations
On November 4, 2022, Twitter under Musk began laying off a substantial portion of the company's workforce and temporarily closed its offices, with The New York Times estimating that roughly half of employees had been let go. The night before the layoffs, five Twitter employees based in San Francisco and Cambridge, Massachusetts, filed a lawsuit against the company, alleging that mass layoffs would violate federal and California WARN Acts. Musk explained that the layoffs were a cost-cutting measure and stated that the company had been losing over $4 million a day, and criticized activist groups who had called on advertisers to cease doing business with the company. The Times described the layoffs as "haphazard", Twitter's internal directory, Birdhouse, was taken offline and Twitter offices worldwide were closed for the weekend.
On November 6, Twitter asked some employees who had been laid off to return to the company. Days after the layoffs, Twitter terminated a large number of its contractors, and Musk fired a series of employees who criticized him publicly or within the company. On November 16, Musk delivered an ultimatum to employees via email: commit to "extremely hardcore" work in order to realize Musk's vision of "Twitter 2.0", or leave. In response, hundreds of Twitter employees resigned the next day, hours before the deadline to respond to Musk's email. Business Insider reported that fewer than 2,000 employees remained at the company. Musk and his advisers met with several employees to dissuade them from leaving the company, while Twitter offices were once again closed until November 21. Despite the closures, Musk summoned all Twitter software engineers to Twitter's headquarters on November 18, seeking greater insight into the platform's solution stack. Additional layoffs occurred later that month, and the company resumed hiring. Musk continued laying off employees in February 2023, promising substantial "performance-based stock awards" to employees who remained at the company.
In November 2022, Axios reported that Twitter had fired almost all of its communications team, leaving only one member. From November 2022 to March 2023, Twitter's communications team was "effectively silent" and not responding to press inquiries, reported NPR. In March 2023, Musk personally announced a new Twitter policy, which brought Twitter in-line with Musk's other businesses which do not have press or communications departments. During the April 2023 controversy, NPR confirmed that a press inquiry it sent to Twitter was responded to by Twitter with an emoji of feces. In April 2023, Musk told the BBC that he had reduced staff from around 8,000 to under 1,500. In June 2023, trust and safety chief Ella Irwin resigned, hours after Musk undid a company moderation decision by unrestricting and reposting The Daily Wire's documentary What Is a Woman?.
Resignation poll
On November 16, 2022, Musk stated that he planned to eventually appoint a new CEO to oversee Twitter, shortly thereafter beginning the process of searching for his successor. On December 18, amid growing public discontent surrounding the ElonJet and Mastodon controversies, Musk conducted an open-access Twitter poll asking whether he should resign from his position as Twitter CEO, claiming that he would "abide by the results". The poll resolved to "yes" after 57.5 percent of 17.5 million users voted in favor of him stepping down.
After this result, Musk responded "interesting" to unfounded theories that the result of the resignation poll had been influenced by bots, agreeing with a user's suggestion to restrict future polls on policy changes to paid Twitter Blue subscribers. On December 20, he announced he would step down as CEO as soon as his replacement was selected, but would continue to lead Twitter's software and server teams. On April 11, 2023, he joked to the BBC that he had appointed his dog as CEO.
On May 11, 2023, Musk announced he had found a person to succeed him in the CEO position; the following day, he named Linda Yaccarino, former head of ad sales for NBCUniversal, to succeed him as CEO.
Corporate value
One year after the Musk acquisition, company documents related to employee restricted stock grants showed the company had estimated its own valuation at about $19 billion, down about 55% from Musk's purchase price. A lower estimate was reported in October 2023 from Fidelity at about the same time, estimating the company to be down 65% from its purchase price. Fidelity estimated in October 2024 that the company's value was down 79% from Musk's original purchase price, 24% lower than what Fidelity had estimated two months earlier. In February 2025, Musk was reportedly in talks for a new round of financing at a $44 billion valuation, thus returning to the valuation at the time of purchase.
Fines
In August 2023, X was fined US$350,000 for failing to meet two deadlines to comply with a U.S. Department of Justice search warrant for the account of former president Donald Trump. In October 2024, the Supreme Court declined to hear X's appeal. In October 2023, X was fined AU$610,500 by Australia's e-Safety Commission for failing to properly disclose information about how it polices child abuse content. As of 2023 other fines were being considered.
Appearance and features
Posts
Posts are publicly visible by default, but senders can restrict message delivery to only their followers. Users can mute users they do not wish to interact with, block accounts from viewing their posts, and remove accounts from their followers list. Users can post via the X website, compatible external applications (such as for smartphones), or by Short Message Service (SMS) available in certain countries. Users may subscribe to other users' posts—this is known as "following" and subscribers are known as "followers". Individual posts can be forwarded by other users to their own feed, a process known as a "repost". Users can also "quote", a feature that allows users to add a comment to their post, imbedding one post in the other. Users can also "like" individual posts.