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Ever since Elon Musk riled up social media over the weekend with his unexpected rebranding of Twitter to X, one fast-paced development after another keeps hitting the airwaves. In the latest tidbit, the Twitter sign removal at X’s HQ has hit a huge snag, and Meta could potentially ruin Elon Musk’s attempt to relabel the global town square in his own image.

As we noted in an earlier post today, Elon Musk had declared over the weekend that the Twitter logo would be removed from the company’s HQ using “blow torches.”

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

Well, it appears that the signpost removal was commenced without prior authorization. Unsurprisingly, the San Francisco Police Department has now shut down the entire operation, as per the anecdotal evidence that is hitting the airwaves.

In another bit of headache that is brewing for Elon Musk, Meta now appears to be in a position to challenge Twitter’s X rebranding.

Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have been locked in an intense bout of one-upmanship ever since Meta launched the Threads app, widely believed to be a Twitter/X clone. In recent days, however, the Threads management has taken pains to distance the app from politics and news-related topics, bestowing the new social media platform with a much blander profile. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the Threads app keeps losing users.

Coming back, the bad blood between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg is so intense that the two have even agreed to an MMA-style cage match.

It appears Instagram and FB owner Meta holds the trademark for "X" as it relates to "online social networking services... social networking services in the fields of entertainment, gaming and application development..." https://t.co/vb2r67ZOzb

— Alex Weprin (@alexweprin) July 24, 2023

It now appears that Meta already holds the trademark for the X branding as it relates to social media and the streaming of digital media content.

Source: https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=87980831&caseType=SERIAL_NO&searchType=statusSearch

Meta’s trademark application for the X label was filed on the 25th of May 2017, with formal registration taking place on the 11th of June 2019. This means that Meta, should it choose to do so, could make Elon Musk’s much-hyped rebranding of Twitter a thorny issue, replete with lengthy legal battles.