X name change has wiped off $5bn in brand value
Twitter has lost over $5bn in brand value since Elon Musk purchased the platform and rebranded it to X.
New data from strategy consultancy Brand Finance revealed that the X brand had fallen out of all of its rankings this year.
In January 2022, Brand Finance valued Twitter at $5.7bn. By 2023, after Musk purchased the company, that brand value had fallen to $3.9bn.
Now, Brand Finance rates its brand value at just $673.3m.
Brand Finance’s Brand Strength Index score for X has also declined by 12.7 points this year to 56.9 out of 100, signalling “a major reputational crisis that the brand is struggling to overcome”.
Elon Musk has done the world a favour — but not the one he intended
“Musk’s controversial rebranding of Twitter has resulted in a dramatic and abrupt decline in brand value and strength,” said Richard Haigh, Brand Finance’s managing director.
“The hasty abandonment of a globally recognised name, without a clear migration plan, has had disastrous consequences, alienating key stakeholders and eroding the brand’s core strengths. This is reflected in the brand’s weaker scores in the familiarity, reputation and recommendation metrics of Brand Finance’s research.”
Marketers have also continued to lose confidence in X as a media platform.
According to Kantar’s latest Media Reactions report, a net 26% of marketing professionals said they plan to reduce adspend on X in 2025. Meanwhile, just 4% of marketers said they believe ads on X provide brand safety.
Social media leads at multiple agencies have previously told The Media Leader that X was never a particularly large part of their media plans even before Musk bought the company, but that his actions to reduce moderation of hateful speech on the platform have further disincentivised them from recommending spending on the platform.
X’s ad sales have reportedly plunged since Musk took over — a concern for the company given around three-fourths of X’s revenue comes from advertising.
Many users have also abandoned X in favour of microblogging alternatives such as Bluesky and Meta’s Threads, with the latter now having around 200m users.
Meanwhile, Brand Finance found that Meta’s platforms have seen a significant bump in brand value over the past year.
Instagram (+48%), WhatsApp (+29%) and Facebook (+28%) increased their brand value by the most of any brands tracked by Brand Finance in 2024. They were followed by TikTok (+28%).
According to Brand Finance, of the top 10 most valuable media brands this year, five are social media companies (TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, WeChat and LinkedIn). Only one is a legacy entertainment brand (Disney).
Google, however, is far and away the most valuable media brand in 2024, worth $333.4bn.
