Kanye West welcomed back to Twitter as Elon Musk rebrands platform to X
Kanye West is officially back on Twitter nearly eight months after having his account suspended.
The rapper, who is now legally known as Ye, was kicked off the platform in December 2022 for repeated anti-Semitic posts, including sharing an image of a swastika merged with the Star of David.
Elon Musk took over Twitter in October 2022 and has now rebranded it as X.
Ye won't be eligible to monetise his account on X, and advertisements won't appear next to his posts, the Wall Street Journal has reported, citing the social media platform.
X reinstated Ye's account after receiving reassurance that he wouldn't use the platform to share anti-Semitic or otherwise harmful language, the report on Saturday said, citing a person familiar with the matter.
Ye has not posted anything new since coming back on the platform.
What happened to the Twitter logo?
While Ye woke up this weekend to find he's allowed back on Twitter, many other users woke up to find that Twitter isn't Twitter anymore.
Last Monday, Mr Musk announced his intention to rebrand Twitter — which has operated under its signature blue bird since 2012 — to simply, X.
Mr Musk has been executing his plan over the past week, including replacing Twitter's blue bird logo and colour scheme with the black and white of X, and updating the app icon so it now shows the X branding and name.
In response to a tweet asking what tweets will be called on X, Mr Musk replied "x's". The "Tweet" button to publish was still live on the platform at the time of writing.
The other cosmetic change Mr Musk has made in his rebranding effort is replacing the Twitter name and bird icon at the platform's San Francisco offices.
On Friday, the company erected an "X" logo on the roof of its Market Street headquarters, to the chagrin of neighbours who complained about intrusive lights.
San Francisco's Department of Building Inspection said it was investigating the structure, which might be in violation of permitting rules.
A department inspector said in a written report that company representatives twice denied roof access to department officials seeking to inspect the logo.
The inspector noted one representative said the sign was temporary.
San Francisco locals over the weekend recorded video of the giant X glowing, pulsing and strobing, with some criticising its intrusive lights.
Why is Twitter now called X?
Mr Musk has stated that the radical change in Twitter's well-established branding is part of his pursuit of what he calls an "everything app".
The company will now work on new features in audio, video, messaging, payments and banking.
Linda Yaccarino, the former advertising chief at NBCUniversal, who started as Twitter CEO on June 5, told employees in a memo that X "will go even further to transform the global town square".
But this isn't the first time Mr Musk has tried to make "X" happen.
In 1999, he co-created an online bank called X.com.
A year later, in March 2000, X.com merged with software company Confinity and he became its CEO.
Confinity's biggest product at the time was PayPal, which allows users to transfer money over the internet.
By September 2000, the X.com board had dumped Mr Musk as CEO, replacing him with Confinity co-founder Peter Thiel.
In June 2001 X.com was officially renamed PayPal.
Since then, Mr Musk has used every opportunity to give his creations names with the letter X.
His spacecraft company? SpaceX. His Tesla electric SUV model? Model X. His son with musical artist Grimes? X Æ A-12 Musk, or X for short.
However, Mr Musk's decision to rebrand Twitter as X could be legally complicated.
X is widely used and cited in trademarks, and companies including Meta and Microsoft already have intellectual property rights to the same letter.
Reuters/ABC