Judge Lets Musk Keep ‘Twitter’ for Now but Forces Him to Release the Bird

The social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, gets to retain the Twitter trademark for the moment, thanks to a partial preliminary injunction against Operation Bluebird, Inc.’s Twitter.new. But by the same ruling, Bluebird gets to keep the birds and tweets. Bluebird responded to this fail whale by announcing it would rename its nascent social network from Twitter.now to Tweet.app.

District Judge Colm F. Connolly said in an opinion issued Thursday that because X still uses the word “Twitter” in its branding, the company would likely prevail if the trademark dispute in the US District Court for the District of Delaware went to final adjudication. 

“X Corp.’s use of the ‘formerly known as Twitter’ parenthetical in its Apple App Store listing makes it unlikely that Bluebird will strictly prove that X Corp. discontinued its use of the Twitter-formative marks,” Connolly wrote.

In other words, X has thus far failed to dislodge Twitter from the public consciousness despite Musk’s scorched-earth approach to destroying its social capital. It’s been three years — “Twitter” should have been gone by now. As a result, the company is still using “Twitter” so we know what it’s talking about.

The ruling does allow Bluebird to continue using “Tweet” and the iconic bird logo, mostly because X didn’t produce convincing evidence that it was still using them and because a lot of the proof X offered — web pages and emails — was undated.

Operation Bluebird announced plans last year to flip Musk the bird by launching Twitter.new in reaction to what many people perceive as the decline of the platform in the wake of Musk’s acquisition and subsequent actions, like diluting account verification, ineffectively combating hate speech and more (or as the new blue site says, “burned it all down”).

In December 2025, X filed suit against Bluebird to block it from using its textual or graphic trademarks: “Twitter,” “tweet” and the bird. Bluebird’s network is still in its please-sign-up phase.

Lori Grunin

Senior Editor / Computers and Gaming Hardware

I’ve been reviewing hardware and software, devising testing methodology and handing out buying advice for more than 25 years.

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