It turns out that Elon Musk isn't all that creative when it comes to naming his companies, as his obsession with the letter X is now landing him in legal trouble. A Florida company called X Social Media LLCis suing the billionaire's company (X - formerly Twitter) for trademark infringement.
According to Reuters, X Social Media LLC, a company that owns Twitter, filed a lawsuit in Florida federal court, claiming that Elon Musk’s rebranding of Twitter to X has caused confusion among customers. The company claims that it has been consistently using the X SOCIALMEDIA trademark since 2016. According to the lawsuit, X Corp violated Florida’s deceptive and unfair practices .
See also: Twitter removes election misinformation reporting tool
X Social Media LLC claims that people are getting confused after Twitter rebranded to X. Since X – Twitter is a social networking platform , many are confusing it with X Social Media and this is causing real problems
“X Social Media has already suffered loss of revenue associated with the rebranding of X Corp. and the use of the “X” mark. It is highly likely that this confusion will continue to the detriment of X Social Media and the consumers who use and benefit from its services,” the lawsuit states.
See also: X (Twitter) is shutting down the Circle feature on October 31st
It's worth noting, however, that the legal battle will be difficult, given that there are at least 900 registrations for the "X" trademark in the U.S., across a variety of different industries. Microsoft, for example, has trademarked X for its Xbox and related platforms since 2003. Meta also has such a trademark for a software and a social media logo.
See also: Elon Musk in court over behavior toward Twitter employees
Elon Musk officially became the owner of Twitter in October 2022. In April 2023, court filings revealed that Musk changed the company's name from Twitter Inc. to X Corp. The platform itself eventually became known as X after the twitter.com URL began redirecting to x .com in the summer. Twitter/X CEO Linda Yaccarinohad said of the change: "X is the future state of unlimited interactivity" and "it will be powered by AI." She had also called it a "liberation from Twitter."
With the name change, Musk wanted to breathe new life into the platform, but on top of all the other problems that have arisen since he bought Twitter/X, it now seems that he has a problem with the name. It remains to be seen whether X Social Media LLC will be able to win the battle.
Source: gizmodo.com
