As Elon Musk rebrands Twitter into X, he faces a thorny legal problem: A tech giant where he's seen as persona non grata already owns the trademark to the X brand for social media services.
In 2019, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta received a trademark for its own X logo to be used across a variety of internet-related services, including social networking and digital messaging.
In addition, a myriad of other companies also hold the rights to X logos for their own product purposes, such as clothing, drones, and cryptocurrency. That includes Microsoft, which was granted the trademark in 2003 for Xbox video game-related services.
“There's a 100% chance that Twitter is going to get sued over this by somebody," trademark attorney Josh Gerben tells Reuters.
A legal battle between Twitter and Meta would be ironic given that Musk has already threatened to sue Zuckerberg for allegedly stealing trade secrets to build Threads. That said, Twitter’s X logo is distinctly different from Meta’s own trademark, as you can see below.
A lawsuit claiming trademark infringement would have to argue that Twitter’s rebrand is causing “confusion in the minds of consumers,” according to the US Patent Office. Meta hasn’t been widely using its own X trademark, though.
While the Twitter name has major brand recognition, Musk views the overhaul as part of his plan to turn Twitter into a super app capable of online payments, personal messaging, and video calls, in addition to social media.
"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," says Twitter's new CEO, Linda Yaccarino.
But for some, the rebrand has been so off-putting that research firm Forrester is predicting that Twitter will eventually shutter or be acquired within 12 months. “While Musk’s vision is to turn ‘X’ into an ‘everything app,’ this takes time, money, and people — three things that the company no longer has,” Forrester says.