What is X? The new Twitter explained

If you’ve been living under a rock for the last two years (or have just taken a social media break), you might have some questions about Twitter’s 2023 rebrand, X. 

We’ve created this guide to explain everything you need to know about X, including what it is, what’s changed and what happened to the bird app we knew and loved. 

What is X?

X is essentially Twitter under a new name, app icon and colour scheme. The rebranding took effect in July 2023, shortly after Elon Musk acquired Twitter in October 2022. 

The app retains the same vertically scrolling timeline and emphasis on short text posts and thread-style interactions from its heyday. It also continues to to a key social platform for news outlets, politicians and celebrities. 

While few features outright changed when Twitter transitioned to X, there have been a significant number of changes since Musk took the helm of the app both before and following the rebrand. Likes have been hidden, the block function no longer prevents users from viewing your posts and the blue check debacle means that users can now pay to appear verified. 

Musk also rebranded Twitter Blue to X Premium and expanded its features, offering users fewer ads, reply prioritisation, the ability to write and share Articles and access to X’s own Grok AI chatbot. 

The CEO has previously alluded to his goal to transform X into an “everything app” comparable to China’s WeChat platform. 

Why are people leaving X (and where are they going)? 

As you can imagine, many users have not been happy with Musk’s increasing efforts to disable popular features and paywall others behind the X Premium banner. Others disagree with the X owner’s political beliefs and recent step into American politics as President-elect Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) co-lead and unofficial BFF. 

These factors have led to what many have referred to as a mass “X-odus”, causing huge download spikes for competitors like Bluesky, Mastodon and (very briefly) Instagram Threads.

Bluesky seems to be the most popular bet for a Twitter successor in 2025. Not only does the app look a lot like Twitter back in the day, but it was originally developed with the help of Twitter founder Jack Dorsey as a decentralised take on Twitter before moving to become independent in 2021. However, whether or not the app can displace X remains unclear.