Twitter simply grabs Gene X Hwang account

Rebranding Twitter takes toll

31.Jul.23 7:49 AM
By Abigail Richards
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Twitter simply grabs Gene X Hwang account

Twitter changes to X. The official account of the social network is now named X. The previous owner of @X had to give up his profile. "They basically just took it away from me," he told The Telegraph.

Until earlier this week, the X account was owned by Gene X Hwang, an American photographer. He had the account since 2007 and said he wanted to sell it to Elon Musk.

But he didn't get the chance to do so. On Tuesday, Hwang received an email from the company informing him that his account was being taken over. "I already thought this would happen," he said.

In the email, Hwang was offered X brand merchandise. He was also told he could meet with the company's top executives for coffee, but no financial compensation was mentioned. "They sent me a message saying the account simply belongs to X."

'All's well that ends well'

It's worth noting that people cannot claim legal rights to their username on the social network. However, X's rules state that accounts are only removed if trademark rights are violated. It's not known if Musk holds rights to X.

X has now transferred Hwang's account to a new profile: the slightly less simple @x12345678998765. "All's well that ends well," Hwang wrote on it. It's unclear if Hwang has accepted other offers.

Account names consisting of just one letter are considered valuable. In the past, such profiles have been sold for tens of thousands.

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