4 ms·

What's the obsesion of Musk with the X? X (twitter) SpaceX, xAI...

by kwanbix 2y ago

furyofantares 2y ago
haha, did you JUST notice this? dont forget his kid's name, and the model x
- bookofjoe 2y ago
  X-Men
- Spivak 2y ago
  model S E X Y Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE It would be funny if he was doing this in his 20's but for a man in his 50s it's big fellowkids behavior.
alangibson 2y ago
[flagged]
- LynchDems 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- jl6 2y ago
  It’s a disease in tech. Xbox Series X, iPhone X, AMD’s Radeon RX 7900 XTX, the X display server…
  - slenk 2y ago
    What's wrong with the 7900 XTX? They also have their x3d processors
  - dredmorbius 2y ago
    In the case of the X Display Server, it was the successor to the W Window System: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W_Window_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W_Window_System> That's in line with a number of sequential naming series, as in BCPL -> B -> C (programming languages), S -> R (statistics languages). Arguably there are also IBM -> HAL and VMS -> WNT.
  - squarefoot 2y ago
    > the X display server… From which he apparently got an idea or two about a certain logo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System
  - latexr 2y ago
    The iPhone case made sense. Apple had Mac OS X, which was the system after Mac OS 9. It had major architectural changes, so much so that every major release was always 10.N, where N was a number from 1 to 15, plus a minor version (10.16 became macOS 11). The iPhone X was released on the tenth anniversary of the iPhone. In both cases the X stood for the roman numeral 10 and the correct pronunciations for the names were “Mac OS ten” and “iPhone ten”. In the iPhone’s case, they even skipped a version (there was never an iPhone 9).
afavour 2y ago
He wanted to rename PayPal to X back in the day. The simple answer is that he thinks it’s cool.
- dmix 2y ago
  and he owned the very expensive domain name
  - n2d4 2y ago
    He sold it (alongside the company), then bought it back in 2017
  - sebazzz 2y ago
    The developer documentation of Paypal (to develop payment connectors to Paypal) used to be on x.com. Confused me as a university student.
n2d4 2y ago
He's had it for a while — he founded another company 20 years ago, x.com, which merged into PayPal. Following that, he wanted to rebrand PayPal into x.com, and was eventually fired for it
- bloomingkales 2y ago
  For that exact desire?
  - imnotjames 2y ago
    Partially. He basically kept ignoring the board and lying to the board -- and that was one such case. Another example was he decided that all of PayPal needed to be Windows computers so every engineer has to stop what they were doing and convert. Board said stop, he said okay, then continued.
  - n2d4 2y ago
    Not exclusively — I've seen several reasons quoted, including the rebrand, Musk's shift from Unix to Windows, and his leadership style.
topspin 2y ago
It's a question, I suppose. Let's feed it in and see what happens. Grok in "fun mode": <enormous response full of typical AI speak elided> Let's whittle that output down a bit with bullshitremover: Elon loves X. His first big thing was X.com. SpaceX has X for space. Tesla Model X is part of the S3XY lineup. He even named his kid X. Now Twitter is X. His AI company is xAI. X is Elon's thing - branding, exploration, rebellion. Love it or hate it, can't ignore it. Hmm. Not sure anything of value has been learned.
andreygrehov 2y ago
What’s the obsession of Apple with the i? iPhone, iMac, iPad… the answer is simple - there is no obsession, it’s just marketing.
- latexr 2y ago
  Reportedly, it originally stood for internet/individual/innovation/…
delichon 2y ago
He appreciates the branding advantage of owning a letter of the alphabet. So he picked one and bought it.
- kwanbix 2y ago
  I doubt x is more recognizable than twitter.

What's the obsesion of Musk with the X? X (twitter) SpaceX, xAI...

furyofantares 2y ago

haha, did you JUST notice this? dont forget his kid's name, and the model x

bookofjoe 2y ago
X-Men
Spivak 2y ago
model S E X Y Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE It would be funny if he was doing this in his 20's but for a man in his 50s it's big fellowkids behavior.

alangibson 2y ago

[flagged]

LynchDems 2y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
jl6 2y ago
It’s a disease in tech. Xbox Series X, iPhone X, AMD’s Radeon RX 7900 XTX, the X display server…
- slenk 2y ago
  What's wrong with the 7900 XTX? They also have their x3d processors
- dredmorbius 2y ago
  In the case of the X Display Server, it was the successor to the W Window System: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W_Window_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W_Window_System> That's in line with a number of sequential naming series, as in BCPL -> B -> C (programming languages), S -> R (statistics languages). Arguably there are also IBM -> HAL and VMS -> WNT.
- squarefoot 2y ago
  > the X display server… From which he apparently got an idea or two about a certain logo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System
- latexr 2y ago
  The iPhone case made sense. Apple had Mac OS X, which was the system after Mac OS 9. It had major architectural changes, so much so that every major release was always 10.N, where N was a number from 1 to 15, plus a minor version (10.16 became macOS 11). The iPhone X was released on the tenth anniversary of the iPhone. In both cases the X stood for the roman numeral 10 and the correct pronunciations for the names were “Mac OS ten” and “iPhone ten”. In the iPhone’s case, they even skipped a version (there was never an iPhone 9).

afavour 2y ago

He wanted to rename PayPal to X back in the day. The simple answer is that he thinks it’s cool.

dmix 2y ago
and he owned the very expensive domain name
- n2d4 2y ago
  He sold it (alongside the company), then bought it back in 2017
- sebazzz 2y ago
  The developer documentation of Paypal (to develop payment connectors to Paypal) used to be on x.com. Confused me as a university student.

n2d4 2y ago

He's had it for a while — he founded another company 20 years ago, x.com, which merged into PayPal. Following that, he wanted to rebrand PayPal into x.com, and was eventually fired for it

bloomingkales 2y ago
For that exact desire?
- imnotjames 2y ago
  Partially. He basically kept ignoring the board and lying to the board -- and that was one such case. Another example was he decided that all of PayPal needed to be Windows computers so every engineer has to stop what they were doing and convert. Board said stop, he said okay, then continued.
- n2d4 2y ago
  Not exclusively — I've seen several reasons quoted, including the rebrand, Musk's shift from Unix to Windows, and his leadership style.

topspin 2y ago

It's a question, I suppose. Let's feed it in and see what happens. Grok in "fun mode": <enormous response full of typical AI speak elided> Let's whittle that output down a bit with bullshitremover: Elon loves X. His first big thing was X.com. SpaceX has X for space. Tesla Model X is part of the S3XY lineup. He even named his kid X. Now Twitter is X. His AI company is xAI. X is Elon's thing - branding, exploration, rebellion. Love it or hate it, can't ignore it. Hmm. Not sure anything of value has been learned.

andreygrehov 2y ago

What’s the obsession of Apple with the i? iPhone, iMac, iPad… the answer is simple - there is no obsession, it’s just marketing.

latexr 2y ago
Reportedly, it originally stood for internet/individual/innovation/…

delichon 2y ago

He appreciates the branding advantage of owning a letter of the alphabet. So he picked one and bought it.

kwanbix 2y ago
I doubt x is more recognizable than twitter.