It has been a busy week for the Twitter brand – from temporary logo changes to an informal brand renaming. The iconic Twitter bird was usurped by the Elon Musk-favoured Doge meme earlier this week, helping the token add as much as $4 billion to its market value. Meanwhile, the company’s name underwent a transformation at its San Francisco headquarters with staffers covering up with ‘w’ in Twitter’s name.
In a tweet on Sunday, Elon Musk posted a picture of the sign with the “w” painted over in white to blend in with the background, he wrote “Our landlord at SF HQ says we’re legally required to keep sign as Twitter & cannot remove ‘w’, so we painted it background color. Problem solved!”
It is pertinent to note that Musk appears to have been toying with the ‘rename’ for quite some time now. In April 2022 the ‘Chief Twit’ had run a poll (now deleted) asking people the same question: “Delete the w in twitter?”
The building’s landlord, SRI Nine Market Square LLC, yet to issue statement on whether the alteration is acceptable, and the new, painted-over signage would be allowed.
Musk has made several drastic changes to the company’s San Francisco headquarters since he took over Twitter. In January, he tried to sell hundreds of things from the office to boost income for Twitter, like kitchen appliances, Twitter sculptures, furniture, and even office plants. And in December, Twitter cut janitorial services in the headquarters, forcing employees to bring their own toilet paper to the office.
The disagreements over the Twitter sign are the latest in the longstanding feud Musk has had with the building’s landlord, SRI Nine Market Square LLC. The landlord sued the Musk-owned Twitter in January. The lawsuit accused Twitter of not paying rent of roughly $3.4 million per month in December and January for the headquarters’ Market Street premises. Separately, Musk has also been tinkering with Twitter’s interface. Last week, Musk replaced Twitter’s bird logo with the Shiba Inu — or doge — mascot. Following this change stocks of the meme cryptocurrency that Musk supports, called Dogecoin, soared by 20%.
