I woke up to find Twitter's bird gone.
Last Monday, Twitter officially announced it would change its logo to “X”, as part of its brand and business overhaul.
Elon Musk stated that the company would “bid farewell to the Twitter brand and all the birds.”
Netizens be like:
“My youth is officially over.”
“Can someone tell me what this ugly thing is?”
“It’s enough to make Professor X file a lawsuit.”
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Twitter Officially Renamed X
Why rename Twitter to X? Elon Musk said he likes it.
There’s a certain beauty in completely disregarding netizens’ feelings.
The web version was the first to be forcibly X-ified, with X.com and the Twitter homepage interconnected, and the logo already changed to X.
The mobile app changes have also taken shape in the past few days.
Elon Musk’s vision for Twitter is to turn it into an “all-powerful app.”
Twitter’s CEO tweeted: X represents the future of boundless interactivity; it will become a platform centered on “audio, video, messaging, and payments/finance,” powered by AI as its engine.
Wait, does that sound familiar? Is this not WeChat? Indeed, Elon took a trip to China and learned fast.
Elon himself is so excited about the renaming to X that he’s been tweeting about it nonstop.
But from now on, tweets won’t be called tweets—they’ll be called x’s.
Then what about retweets? Elon says he’ll have to think about it.
After all, he paid $44 billion for the company, so he can call it whatever he wants. It’s all about having deep pockets and doing whatever.
Elon Musk has always had a thing for X.
His son is named X Æ A-Xii👇
His new company is called xAI👇
His rocket company is SpaceX👇
The electric car is the Tesla Model X👇
Even PayPal’s domain was originally going to be X.com.
If he himself isn’t called X-Man, I’d be genuinely heartbroken.
Always Stirring Things Up
Ever since Musk took over Twitter, he’s been up to all sorts of antics: layoffs, rate limiting, blue checks, challenging Zuckerberg to a fight... Genuine question: Is Elon going through puberty?❓
Layoffs
As a seasoned workaholic, Elon has been grumbling since taking over Twitter, saying “many people are doing work that’s completely worthless,” and criticizing tech companies for overhiring and fake prosperity.
And he wasted no time: upon taking office last year, he swept out the entire C-suite, firing the then CEO, CFO, COO, CLO...
After several rounds of massive layoffs, Twitter now only has about 1,500 employees left—down 80%. Mission accomplished, he’s satisfied.
Rate Limiting
Earlier this month, Elon Musk suddenly announced rate limits on Twitter: newly registered non-members can only view up to 500 tweets per day.
Old users aren’t much better off, limited to 1,000 tweets. Only the privileged Twitter Blue subscribers get 10,000.
Early that morning, many users couldn’t view any tweets; they either got “rate limit exceeded” messages or system errors.
It wasn’t the first time Twitter crashed recently either. This past February, the system went down for 90 minutes, and in March, there were issues with clicking links or loading images.
After all, with Mr. Musk shutting down data centers and laying off staff, there’s a shortage of people to maintain it—crashes are almost inevitable.
But all this can be fixed just by upgrading to a blue check.
Blue Check
Twitter Blue is a subscription service launched by Twitter, officially rolled out globally this March.
In the US, the web version costs $8 per month, and the app version $11 per month.
Blue check features include posting long-form content, editing published tweets, customizable themes, etc.—pretty much like Weibo’s VIP membership.
The business version is even more expensive, at $1,000 per month.
Business accounts get a gold check, with features like direct messages, custom pages, VIP support, etc. How useful is it? Hard to say; it’s mainly about the prestige of having a gold check.
But... blue check, gold check—isn’t this just QQ membership?
Fight Challenge
Last month, Musk challenged Zuckerberg to a fight online, causing a sensation across the internet.
Elon first talked big on Twitter, issuing a “cage match” challenge.
A cage match looks like this👇
Then Zuckerberg responded on Instagram: “Send me location.”
The two even contacted the UFC president to act as a fight advisor.
But Zuckerberg actually trains; Elon, well, that’s another story.
Elon’s mother objected: “Are you two three years old?” 😠😠
On July 5, Zuckerberg posted a tweet with two Spider-Men fighting each other.
That same day, Threads officially launched, claiming it would crush Twitter.
Just three days after launch, it had 44 million daily active users; within the first week, registrations hit 100 million.
Though touted as a “Twitter killer,” Threads has lost some momentum. Two weeks later, daily active users plummeted 70% to just 13 million, and new user registrations slowed significantly.
Although people have been predicting Twitter’s demise every year, it’s still a veteran social media platform with 200 million daily active users and an average daily time spent of 30 minutes.
Threads only averages 4 minutes.
While the numbers may look bad, the stock has been a winner, climbing to $314 per share, a 7% increase, adding $63 billion in market cap.
These two have truly mastered the art of generating buzz—it’s hard not to suspect Elon has invested in Meta 😅
Musk’s Business Ambitions
From the $44 billion acquisition of Twitter to renaming it X, every move Elon makes is baffling. Yet investors have reaped huge rewards—those who bought Tesla stock are sitting pretty.
After all, as an INTJ, he relies purely on intuition and still wins.
Business plans? They’re nothing before a mogul’s intuition. A 500-page McKinsey presentation can’t match Elon’s whims.
He’s basically handing Threads a wedding dress, but deep down, he doesn’t care. The two aren’t even competing in the same lane.
xAI is his true ambition.
On July 12, riding the wave of hype from the Zuck fight challenge, xAI burst onto the scene.
xAI is mysterious; its website states: “Understand the true nature of the universe.”
Musk isn’t building just another AGI model to compete with OpenAI or Google; he’s aiming for a dimension-reducing strike: using AI to understand everything.
His ambition has never been limited to the internet.
xAI’s mission is to solve enduring human mysteries like dark matter, dark energy, aliens, gravity... It sounds absolutely insane.
Even though five years ago he was waving the anti-AI banner, warning that “AI is more dangerous than nuclear weapons.”
This March, he led over a thousand tech bigwigs in signing an open letter “calling on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4.”
But AI is unstoppable. So while leading the resistance, he’s also recruiting talent and registering his own AI company.
In July, Elon announced the founding of xAI, with many co-founders poached from OpenAI, Google, and other top firms.
If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.
Will he revolutionize AI? We’ll have to wait and see. At least from building rockets to electric cars, Musk has never been one to just talk. Just go for it.
In the AI Era, How Can International Students Seize Opportunities?
In the post-pandemic era, tech giants are engaged in a chaotic war of innovation. AI is unstoppable; how can international students seize the moment?
International students interested in the tech industry might consider AI-related majors at top schools like CMU, MIT, and Stanford, all of which offer AI programs:
Students in CS or data science can also consider AI research directions:
Or enroll in short-term programs, like Caltech’s 24-week boot camp:
Additionally, make full use of free courses and learning resources on Coursera and YouTube:
In the age of AI, only by continuously improving yourself can you effectively meet challenges, seize opportunities, and stand out in future job hunting.
