Elon Musk’s X Corp. has filed a lawsuit against a startup called Operation Bluebird, which plans to launch an alternative social network called Twitter.new. The company claims that the rebranding to X did not mean giving up rights to the Twitter and Tweet trademarks.
Elon Musk’s X Corp. has filed a lawsuit against a startup called Operation Bluebird, which plans to launch an alternative social network called Twitter.new. The company claims that the rebranding to X did not mean giving up rights to the Twitter and Tweet trademarks.
According to The Verge, before the lawsuit, Operation Bluebird applied to the USPTO with a request to cancel the registrations of «Twitter» and «Tweet», arguing that this was a «legal abandonment» of the brand. In parallel, the startup filed its own application for the Twitter trademark and opened a reservation of nicknames on the Twitter.new domain.
X Corp. denies «abandoning» the brand and insists that Twitter is still used in the public sphere: users continue to call the platform «Twitter» and posts «tweets.» The company also notes that as of December 11, 2025, more than 4 million people accessed the service via twitter.com, which redirects to x.com.
A separate part of the claims concerns identity. X Corp. believes that Operation Bluebird is choosing the name, logo and colors in such a way as to create a false association with the former Twitter and take advantage of the brand’s reputation. In response, Bluebird lawyer Stephen Coates, who previously worked at Twitter, stated that X itself publicly declared the brand «dead» and was wasting resources on a new identity.
X Corp. is asking the court to prohibit the startup from using Twitter-related marks, and the USPTO to reject Operation Bluebird’s trademark application. The company is also seeking damages.
Twitter was renamed to X in 2023, but the «old» names and the twitter.com domain continue to appear actively in links and colloquial speech.
Previously, dev.ua wrote about how the European Commission imposed the first fine under the Digital Services Act (DSA), and it is directed against Elon Musk’s company X (Twitter).
