"X" Logo Installation in San Francisco Twitter Building May Have Violated Design, Safety Standards

The Twitter building in San Francisco has set up a massive new "X" logo after the company's rebranding. However, it may have violated some local San Francisco city laws.

The local government of San Francisco has now opened a complaint and launched an investigation regarding the new "X" logo on top of the building formerly known as the Twitter headquarters. According to city officials, replacing letters or symbols on buildings and the act of erecting a sign on top of a building needs a permit before it can happen. This is for design and safety reasons.

The Associated Press noted that the new "X" logo appeared on top of the now-former Twitter HQ after police stopped workers from taking down the social media platform's iconic bird and logo from the side of the building. Police revealed that the workers violated safety standards by not taping off the sidewalk to keep pedestrians safe if anything fell.

A spokesperson for San Francisco's Department of Building Inspection, Patrick Hannan, told reporters that replacing letters or symbols would require a permit. This is to make sure that it would have "consistency with the historic nature of the building" and to make sure additions are safely attached to the sign. The spokesperson also stated that erecting a sign on top of a building also needed a permit and that "Planning review and approval is also necessary."

'X' CEO Elon Musk Has Been Obsessed With 'X.com' for 25 Years

Twitter, now "X" CEO Elon Musk rebranding the social media platform and replacing its beloved bird logo has something to do with Musk's failed attempt to rebrand PayPal into X.com.

In 1999, during the height of the .com boom, Musk sold Zip2 for $22 million. He then used $18 million of that to launch X.com, which was supposed to be an online hub for every kind of financial transaction in the world. He was so adamant with the name that he would not budge on it after others pointed out that "X.com" may be associated by most people with porn.

Eventually, PayPal started and replaced X.com as the name, but Musk wanted to keep that name. This led to a boardroom revolt and overthrew him as CEO, according to Mashable. Now, the name X.com lives again, but not for PayPal, but for Twitter.

Twitter Rebrand Forced One User To Lose His Original @X Handle

When Elon Musk rebranded Twitter into "X," there was one surprising casualty: the user who used to have the handle @X. The official account belonging to the social media platform changed from @twitter to @X following the rebranding. This forced a user named Gene X Hwang to change his Twitter handle, @X, to a different one.

Now sporting the handle @x12345678998765, Hwang told Business Insider that he had the @x handle since 2007. He is a photographer based in San Francisco, California, and he admitted that he was willing to trade his original handle but "X" did not provide him with any financial compensation for his trouble.

"Some amount of money or compensation doesn't seem like it would be too big a deal for them," he told Business Insider. "I definitely would have accepted something for it, but I also wasn't trying to extort money or anything like that."

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Rick Martin

WATCH: Confusion during removal of Twitter sign from San Francisco headquarters - KTVU FOX 2 San Francisco