For over two years, Elon Musk treated Twitter as a thing of the past. The platform became X, the bird logo vanished, and the company’s language and branding followed suit. That certainty, however, is now in question.
X Corp. has sued Virginia startup Operation Bluebird, which is attempting to revive Twitter as a standalone social network. The lawsuit transforms a trademark dispute into a full-blown battle over one of technology’s most iconic names.
Operation Bluebird argued at the US Patent and Trademark Office that X abandoned the Twitter and tweet trademarks, citing Musk’s 2023 declaration that Twitter was finished. The startup already has a working prototype, with over 145,000 users reserving handles.
X Corp. counters that Twitter was never truly abandoned. Users still refer to posts as tweets, links still display the Twitter bird favicon, and twitter.com redirects millions of visitors to X. The company frames Operation Bluebird’s effort as infringement, claiming it seeks to capitalize on Twitter’s goodwill.
The lawsuit reflects a broader recalibration. X recently updated its terms of service to reaffirm ownership of both Twitter and X, signaling that the brand remains strategically valuable.
The dispute highlights a key tension: can a company genuinely abandon a defining brand, or does cultural and technical continuity preserve ownership? Musk’s X now faces a legal and reputational test, revealing that in tech, no brand is ever truly expendable.
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