Twitter has officially rebranded to the letter “X” and immediately got to work removing the company name from its headquarter’s signage on Monday—until police intervened, causing a delay and leaving the “ER” portion of the sign untouched as local law enforcement investigated.
The episode, chronicled by bystanders in real time on Twitter—or X—was an apt, if unintentional, representation of the chaotic nature of the social media company over the past several months.
In an emailed statement to Fortune, a spokesperson with the San Francisco Police Department said at approximately 12:39 p.m., officers assigned to the Tenderloin Station responded to Twitter HQ regarding a report of a possible unpermitted street closure.
Welp, @twitter name so coming off the building right now but @elonmusk didn’t get permit for the equipment on the street so @SFPD is shutting it down. pic.twitter.com/CFpggWwhhf
— Wayne Sutton (@waynesutton) July 24, 2023
“Through their investigation officers were able to determine that no crime was committed, and this incident was not a police matter,” an SFPD spokesperson wrote.
The Market Street headquarters of the renowned social media platform had long been a distinctive landmark in San Francisco, with its bright blue “Twitter” bird becoming an iconic symbol of the company’s presence. Now the company is dismantling the sign in a bid to rebrand the company to just the letter “X.”
This is not the first signage woes the company has experienced at the behest of its new owner, Elon Musk. In an apparent attempt at humor in April, Musk had the “W” in Twitter covered so that the sign read “Titter.” The building’s landlord intervened and said the firm is “legally required to keep sign as Twitter,” Musk tweeted. In the spirit of malicious compliance, the company painted the W white, so it blended in with the background.
The dismantled sign is only one of the sweeping changes made at the company’s headquarters in an effort to rebrand to X. The company hyped up the transformation by projecting the new X logo on the side of the building. X logos adorned the cafeteria, and conference rooms received creative names like “eXposure,” “eXult,” and “s3Xy,” the New York Times reported.
