Gene X Hwang, owner of the corporate photography and videography studio, Orange Photography, recently confirmed that the company now known as X (previously Twitter) has seized his @x Twitter handle. According to Hwang, this was done without any prior warning or financial compensation, and he was simply told the handle now belongs to X.
As a token of appreciation, the company offered Hwang some X merchandise and a tour of X's headquarters. This move was part of a series of haphazard steps taken in the rebranding of Twitter to X, under the new owner Elon Musk.
Reports indicate that Twitter did not secure the intellectual property rights to the "X" brand, facing claims from Meta and Microsoft over various "X" trademarks. Moreover, the city's permission was not obtained to remove the Twitter signage from the building, leading to the police halting the work.
Additionally, the company failed to update its website and app fully, which, despite now featuring an "X," still asked users to "search Twitter" or "Tweet." Furthermore, it was found that the company did not reach out in advance to secure the @x Twitter handle.
Despite this corporate rebranding, Hwang was surprised that the company had not reached out to him regarding the @x account, which he owned and had set to private. He stated that he would have been open to discussion about the handle's transfer. Online usernames, when sold on secondary marketplaces, often fetch thousands of dollars, but Hwang received no such financial compensation.
When Twitter changed its official handle to @x, Hwang was assigned a new handle @x1234567998765, and his followers and following data were transferred to this new handle. The company asked Hwang to reply to the email if he had a preference for a different handle.
Hwang, who had always felt that this could happen, seems to have a good sense of humor about losing the valuable online username. He tweeted, "Alls well that ends well," indicating his acceptance of the situation.
Despite the upheaval, questions remain about X's future and the value of a one-letter username on this platform, especially after potential brand value destruction worth billions of dollars. The very act of Musk buying Twitter, firing most of the team, revamping the product, discontinuing numerous Twitter features, and renaming the company itself, seems almost comical. It makes one wonder, what did Musk really want to buy? It appears it was just the infrastructure and a means to reach his fans.
