Police stop Twitter from taking down signage at San Francisco headquarters
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Police put a partial stop to Elon Musk’s quick-fire Twitter rebrand on Monday by halting the removal of the company’s iconic signage at its San Francisco headquarters, reports Insider.
The rebrand sees Twitter become “X” — with Elon Musk replacing the platform’s familiar bird logo with a one-letter “X” that is superseding the original Twitter brand.
As part of the change, which has already seen the former Twitter website replace the blue bird symbol that’s long been its signature, the company hired a “boom lift” to take the old Twitter signage from its San Francisco headquarters, although in Musk’s haste, the platform failed to apply for a permit to operate the hydraulic lift on the sidewalk, with the San Francisco Police Department putting an immediate stop to the work, as captured in video footage by Wayne Sutton.
Welp, @twitter name so coming off the building right now but @elonmusk didn’t get permit for the equipment on the street so @SFPD is shutting it down. pic.twitter.com/CFpggWwhhf
— Wayne Sutton (@waynesutton) July 24, 2023
SFPD told Insider that officers attended to a report of “a possible unpermitted street closure,” as a lift outside Twitter’s headquarters in the city was used to remove some of the letters from the Twitter sign. The officers were “able to determine that no crime was committed, and this incident was not a police matter,” the statement says.
Employees were not informed that the sign would be removed, two people familiar with the company told Insider. A large lift simply “showed up” and men began dismantling the sign, one of the people said.
The change follows after Musk legally renamed Twitter Inc. to X Corp. in April, saying at the time Twitter would become an “everything app” called X.
The rebrand is the latest change made to the platform since Elon Musk’s turbulent takeover last year, which has seen loosened content moderation, controversial changes to its verification system, a focus on paywalling features such as TweetDeck, and the recent introduction of rate limits, which cap how many tweets users can read.
The report notes how the lift was parked in a lane normally reserved for through traffic, and at points caused traffic to back up. When police showed up in the early afternoon, they began directing traffic around the lift, one of the people familiar said.
Given the disturbance, police halted the removal of the signage before it could be completed, the person said. The lift is now gone, the person added. The full Twitter name remains on one side of the sign, while the other side shows only the letters “er” remain.
Image: Wayne Sutton