X Corp. Sues Social Media Startup Over Bid to Claim ‘Twitter’ Brand

‘TWITTER is one of the world’s most recognized brands, and it belongs to X Corp. Simply put, a rebrand is not an abandonment of trademark rights,’ X stated.

A Twitter app icon on a mobile phone in Philadelphia on April 26, 2017. Matt Rourke/AP Photo

Elon Musk’s X Corp. has sued a social media startup company named Operation Bluebird, accusing it of trying to “steal the world-famous Twitter brand.”

In a lawsuit filed on Dec. 16, X claimed that the Twitter brand is alive and well and still owned by Musk’s company. Operation Bluebird on Dec. 2 requested that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office cancel X’s Twitter trademarks, arguing abandonment of the brand.

“Our cancellation petition is based on well-established trademark law and we believe we will be successful,” Operation Bluebird Founder Michael Peroff said in a statement to Reuters.

Peroff said he is prepared to take the legal battle as far as he needs to in order to achieve his goal: resurrecting Twitter in a new form. The social media startup stated that it wanted to use the Twitter trademark for a competing app called “twitter.new.”

“The Public Square Is Broken. But We Still Believe In It. One Brand Tried To Fix It. Then Burned It All Down. We Are Bringing It Back. This Time With Trust. Welcome To Twitter.new. #BackWithYourEx,” the startup’s homepage reads.

X’s lawsuit states that Bluebird’s website, domain name, logo, and homepage message violate trademark laws.

More than 4 million users access X through the domain name “twitter.com,” according to the lawsuit, and as a result, granting the trademark to Operation Bluebird would confuse consumers, X alleged in its complaint. Users around the world still call the platform Twitter, and webpages continue to use the Twitter logo despite its rebrand in 2023 after Musk bought the platform for $44 billion.

“TWITTER is one of the world’s most recognized brands, and it belongs to X Corp. Simply put, a rebrand is not an abandonment of trademark rights,” X’s lawsuit reads. “This is textbook willful trademark and copyright infringement and counterfeiting, undertaken to exploit consumer recognition.”

Operation Bluebird’s twitter.new landing page shows that it has garnered more than 145,000 handle requests as of publication. In its handle reservation disclaimer, the website refers to itself as Twitter. In small font at the bottom of the page, a notice reads, in part, that “Operation Bluebird Inc. is not affiliated with X Corp or Twitter, Inc.”

The lawsuit argues that this disclaimer at the bottom of the website is not enough to clarify to consumers that Operation Bluebird—or twitter.new—is not affiliated with X Corp.

In the legal action, filed in Delaware federal court, X is demanding a jury trial and is requesting an unspecified amount of damages to be later determined.