On Monday, Elon Musk renamed the social media network Twitter as “X” and introduced a new logo for the social media company, a stylized black-and-white version of the letter. Twitter’s official account has also been altered to @X as part of the continuing makeover, with the former @Twitter handle being dormant.
However, according to the Telegraph, Musk took over the @x Twitter account without compensating its owner. Gene X Hwang, the co-founder of event photography company Orange Photography, said he was willing to consider selling the @x account, which was registered in 2007, but on Tuesday he received an email informing him that the account had been taken over by the company.
”They did send an email saying it is the property of ‘x’ essentially,” he said. However, no one reached out to him or contacted him regarding the same.
He told The Telegraph: “They just took it essentially – kinda what I thought might happen.”
He was given some X products and a meeting with the company’s management, but no financial incentive was given to him.
While Twitter users have no legal rights to their usernames, the company’s terms of service state that accounts will be removed solely in cases of trademark infringement. Mr. Hwang created a Twitter account in 2007, a year after the platform was introduced.
Twitter renamed Hwang’s account and faces lawsuits
Meanwhile, Mr. Hwang’s account has been renamed “@x12345678998765” by the corporation. He wrote on Wednesday morning, “All’s well that ends well.”
Notably, the rebranding may be legally complex because companies like Meta and Microsoft already own intellectual property rights to the same letter.
“There’s a 100% chance that Twitter is going to get sued over this by somebody,” said trademark attorney Josh Gerben, who noted that almost 900 existing U.S. trademark registrations already cover the letter X in a variety of businesses.
Mr. Musk wants X to be a “super app” that includes not only Twitter’s existing social networking and messaging services, but also payments, banking, and video.