Why Elon Musk Has To Make Twitter The "X"?

Many people believe that Elon Musk's actions of changing Twitter's logo and renaming it as "X" are somewhat eccentric and have been taken lightly by many, even making fun of it (including its parody accounts).

Also, Jim Cramer from Wall Street made a significant counterargument.

There are also comparisons drawn between this move and Facebook's 2021 name change to $Meta Platforms, Inc.(META)$ which some see as a deliberate attempt to mystify things.

However, it must be acknowledged that ever since the rebranding to Meta, the overall style has undergone a transformation. After experiencing the iOS privacy debacle and two consecutive underperformances in early 2022, Mark Zuckerberg realized the truth of "not being too polite with analysts." Unable to change the market's expectations, he decided to take a different approach, lowering the guidance and setting lower market expectations, which eventually led to an impressive performance in the latter half of 2022, surpassing expectations.

Furthermore, thanks to its strong asset quality (cash) that benefits from the high-interest-rate environment, Meta gained favor from investors, and its stock price steadily climbed back to around $300.

Now, with Musk renaming Twitter, could this also signify a rebirth of sorts? Twitter is currently facing significant competition. Meta, in particular, poses a formidable challenge with its Threads app, which quickly gained 100 million users due to its strong ties with Instagram.

So, what will be Twitter's winning strategy?

Musk has repeatedly mentioned his goal of turning Twitter into a "super app." He seems to draw inspiration from WeChat $Tencent(00700)$ and $Grab Holdings(GRAB)$ . WeChat, as an instant messaging and social media platform, has become China's largest application, both in terms of service range and user count. Additionally, it stands as one of China's largest payment networks, with users able to make purchases and transfers through WeChat Pay.

Studies suggest that Chinese users spend up to one-third of their waking lives on WeChat. On the other hand, GRAB has gradually become one of the most commonly used apps in daily life for Southeast Asian users.