Why did Elon Musk rename Twitter to X

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Goodbye, Blue Bird: Overnight, Twitter began rebranding itself as X, replacing its old logo with a stylized symbol projected onto its San Francisco headquarters.

The move underscored Elon Musk’s ambition to make the social network a core part of his long-standing goal of creating an “everything app.” But it’s also another risky gamble to reinvent a company that has struggled since he paid $44 billion for it last year.

“Lights. Camera. X!” Written by Linda Iaccarino, CEO of the company, as the social network began rolling out its new brand. he’s gone The stylized birdonce dubbed Larry T. Bird by Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, has become one of the Internet’s most famous catchphrases — described by the company as Its most distinctive assets.

A page about the platform has not yet been updated, but Ms. Yaccarino has repeatedly referred to X in a series of tweets outlining the company’s ambitions. Expect X to fully pervade the company: Mr. Musk described an internal letter to employees over the weekend as Last time I sent it from Twitterand tell the user that the post should be be called “x” instead of tweeting.

It was very clear that Mr. Musk was behind this change, Have long been fascinated by the identity of X. His second start was X.com, which eventually became PayPal. (Co-author Walter Isaacson tantalizing excerpts From his upcoming Musk bio about that.) Mr. Musk included the letter “X” in the name of SpaceX and Tesla’s first car model, and he recently named his new artificial intelligence company xAI.

Not everyone was On board with this movethough some advertising executives said what matters most is whether users stick to the platform. Mrs. Yaccarino briefed the marketers Sunday on the company’s latest changes, according to the Financial Times, which also include further collaborations with xAI. (The renewal may raise questions about how much power she wields in the company, after Mr. Musk Display limits imposed For users who have not satisfied advertisers.)

It’s more than just a branding exercise. As Twitter struggles under Mr. Musk — the pivot to relying on subscriptions hasn’t made up for a 50 percent decrease in advertising revenuenegative cash flow, and a new threat from Meta Threads — he’s increasingly emphasized the company’s importance in what he calls X.

The billionaire has long dreamed of creating a super app that could serve as a platform for everything users can do online, just like WeChat does in China. But since third-party data indicates user numbers are declining, it’s not clear how much runway Mr. Musk should get again.

“Barbenheimer” sets a post-pandemic box office record. “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” grossed a combined $235.5 million in the US and Canada, its best opening weekend since “Avengers: Endgame” in 2019. It’s good news for a film industry reeling from writers’ and actors’ strikes and underperformance due to expensive films, but it suggests that Hollywood’s reliance on franchises is increasingly failing to pay off.

Forest fires force evacuations in Greece. Administrators I ordered thousands Off the tourist hotspots of Rhodes and Corfu this weekend after fires ravaged swathes of the islands. Southern Europe, like much of the Northern Hemisphere, has been roasted by temperatures exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Morgan Stanley gives “Bidenomics” strong marks. Elaine Zentner, the bank’s chief US economist, said President Biden’s economic policy, including sweeping investments in infrastructure, has led to Boom in manufacturing, construction and employment That helped the GDP grow more than expected. This is good new for Biden, who has touted his economic record to boost his re-election campaign.

Adidas is said to see strong demand for Yeezy shoes. The German shoemaker received approx Online orders amounting to $563 million As for the Kanye West-designed sneakers that sought to unpack this spring, according to the Financial Times. Last year, Adidas ended its partnership with the rapper after he made anti-Semitic remarks, but it sought alternatives to destroy Yeezy stock, which would result in a $550 million writedown.

Investors are bracing for a subsequent week of interest rate decisions that could pave the way for a second-half recovery for the world’s largest economies.

Wall Street is increasingly buying into a “soft landing” for the US economy, betting that higher interest rates will continue to reduce inflation without causing a recession. John Gray, the head of Blackstone, believes the worst is over and M.J. &. a. Activity will pick up again as inflation moderates.

Investors are feeling bullish too, pushing the S&P 500 up nearly 19 percent this year on the belief that central banks will grow less stringent.

That vision will be tested on Wednesday, the Fed’s decision day. After halting interest rate hikes last month, the central bank is expected to raise borrowing costs by 0.25 percentage point, its eleventh increase since March 2022.

This morning futures markets are pricing in a one in three chance of a September hike at the next Federal Reserve meeting. Economists also increasingly see a Fed tightening cycle Coming to an end this week.

The European Central Bank meets on Thursday. Economists expect the European Central Bank to raise interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point. Beyond that, the outlook is less clear. Inflation has begun to decline in the eurozone. Whether this will be enough to convince Christine Lagarde, the bank’s president, and her colleagues to pause (or stop) after this week remains to be seen.

On Friday, the Bank of Japan decided. data Released last week The headline inflation rate outperformed the United States for the first time in years. But economists expect the central bank to sit still, largely because wage growth in Japan is relatively weak. Global investors, including Warren Buffett, have flocked to relatively cheap Japanese stocks this year, due to the country’s economic outlook.

  • In other news this week: Big Tech will be part of a showcase of 165 S&P 500 companies that are scheduled to report quarterly results. Investors will tune earnings calls for Microsoft and Alphabet — both on Tuesday — and the Meta on Wednesday for clues as to whether the explosion in interest in artificial intelligence is affecting their business outlook.

Cable company Altice USA is considering a possible sale of Cheddar News, the news network once billed as “CNBC for millennials,” less than five years after buying the company, DealBook’s Lauren Hirsch and The Times’s Ben Mullin were the first to report.

Altice USA has hired Goldman Sachs to help explore strategic alternatives to Cheddar News, according to three people familiar with the matter. They cautioned that Altice is still weighing its options and may decide against selling. Representatives for Altice USA and Goldman declined to comment.

The sale would be an undoing of Altice USA’s big bet on the streaming news company. Altice, which is controlled by French-Israeli billionaire Patrick Drahi, Pay 200 million dollars to the broadcast network in 2019. The deal was seen as a way to elevate the company’s news division, which also houses News 12. Scheider has presented himself as the future of financial news, providing interviews with CEOs, newsmakers and journalists from the NYSE floor.

Cheddar does not work like traditional cable works. The network’s founder, former BuzzFeed chief John Steinberg, has struck deals to distribute it across a wide range of platforms. Among them: a gas station (which, yes, plays at the pump) and the MTV campus network (which cheddar Buyer in 2018).

However, some of these agreements are not as profitable as cable distribution deals. Instead of TV providers like Comcast paying each of Cheddar’s viewers, the channel relies mostly on advertising revenue. This is a tough business model for media companies competing with tech giants like Meta and TikTok for share of the digital advertising market. (Actually, Cheddar has recently Layoffs.)

Shares of Altice USA are down about 70 percent over the past year. The company reported, which provides broadband service across 22 states Decrease in profits and revenues In the first quarter, revenue from news and advertising alone fell 14 percent. Altice is scheduled to report its second-quarter earnings next week.

China forecast The looming economic downturn We are Accumulation As in the post covid phase recovery booths. Growth is slowingAnd Youth unemployment is high The important real estate sector is in decline. The slowdown has fueled a debate Among think tanks and political analysts in Washington: Have we reached “peak China” and what does that mean for the world?

The idea that China’s rise is running out Submitted by Michael Beckley, head of the Asia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute at A 2018 article For Foreign Affairs magazine. Mr. Beckley believes his framing has taken off recently because it no longer seems inevitable that China will overtake the US economically.

Countries at the peak of their power tend to become more aggressive, He says. In an upcoming paper in the International Journal of Security shared with DealBook, Mr. Beckley argues that the current slowdown could lead to a more expansionist China (think of Increasing insistence towards Taiwan), based on the historical behavior of other countries such as the United States in the late nineteenth century. Yet, as the American example demonstrates, says Mr. Beckley, “maximum power is not doomed to decline.”

“We need to be careful” about assumptions because there is no reliable datasaid Rep. Raja Krishnamurthy of Illinois, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Competition with China. While busting China’s economic engine, he says Beckley’s theory is misleading because it focuses on the “artificial” plateaus of another economy rather than how to boost growth in the United States.

It is too early to call the beginning of the end of Chinese growth, says Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Political Risk Advisory Group. He argues that China’s growth will outpace that of the United States and that the “peak China” theory is “ideologically charged”. It is presented by those with a “zero-sum” world view who fail to realize that China’s successes can be a win for the United States and that Beijing’s global influence is likely to continue to grow along with its economy. And American companies, such as Tesla and the NBA, that provide banking services in the Chinese markets, do not want to see a decline. “There are a lot of people who are very excited about making money from China,” Bremmer said.

deals

Policy

  • “DeSantis’ ‘lightweight’ campaign faces reboots and reckoning.” (The New York Times)

  • worldcoin, the cryptocurrency project founded by OpenAI chief Sam Altman, went live on Monday despite regulatory opposition. (foot)

  • Drugmakers are waging war over the Biden administration’s move to allow Medicare to negotiate the price of some prescription drugs. (The New York Times)

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