Twitter now X, rates climb, and tech earnings beat

Elon transitions Twitter to X, The Fed brings rates higher to beat inflation, and Big Tech earnings outpace expectations

Twitter → X

Twitter is no longer. Elon Musk announced that he “…shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds,” in a post to X early Sunday morning.

The change from Twitter to X is one that while culturally shocking is not out of the blue. Elon Musk founded X.com in 1999 as an online financial institution before it merged with Confinity. The joint company then changed its name to… PayPal.

Elon Musk never forget about X and has publicly stated that he thought of Twitter as “an accelerant to creating X, the everything app.”

Linda Yaccarino, the company’s CEO, sent this memo to employees regarding the transition:

Hi team,

What a momentous weekend. As I said yesterday, it’s extremely rare, whether it’s in life or in business, that you have the opportunity to make another big impression. That’s what we’re experiencing together, in real time. Take a moment to put it all into perspective.

17 years ago, Twitter made a lasting imprint on the world. The platform changed the speed at which people accessed information. It created a new dynamic for how people communicated, debated, and responded to things happening in the world. Twitter introduced a new way for people, public figures, and brands to build long lasting relationships. In one way or another, everyone here is a driving force in that change. But equally all our users and partners constantly challenged us to dream bigger, to innovate faster, and to fulfill our great potential.

With X we will go even further to transform the global town square — and impress the world all over again.

Our company uniquely has the drive to make this possible. Many companies say they want to move fast — but we enjoy moving at the speed of light, and when we do, that’s X. At our core, we have an inventor mindset -- constantly learning, testing out new approaches, changing to get it right and ultimately succeeding.

With X, we serve our entire community of users and customers by working tirelessly to preserve free expression and choice, create limitless interactivity, and create a marketplace that enables the economic success of all its participants.

The best news is we’re well underway. Everyone should be proud of the pace of innovation over the last nine months — from long form content, to creator monetization, and tremendous advancements in brand safety protections. Our usage is at an all time high and we’ll continue to delight our entire community with new experiences in audio, video, messaging, payments, banking — creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities.

Please don’t take this moment for granted. You’re writing history, and there’s no limit to our transformation. And everyone, is invited to build X with us.

Elon and I will be working across every team and partner to bring X to the world. That includes keeping our entire community up to date, ensuring that we all have the information we need to move forward.

Now, let’s go make that next big impression on the world, together.

Linda

The move has sparked controversy and debate among users, observers, and the media. Many assume that Elon is writing his own downfall and desperately scrambling to rid himself of the Twitter brand they feel he is destroying. Others seem to understand the vision and just dislike it.

As for the language that surrounds Twitter, Musk assumes it can and will be reworked or X-ified. Writing that tweets can be called ‘x's’ and that the concept of retweets should be “rethought”.

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Interest Rates Hit 22-Year High

Wednesday afternoon the Federal Reserve announced, in the first meeting since the pause, that it would be raising the target federal funds rate by 25 basis points to 5.25% to 5.50%. The move brings the midpoint of the range to its highest level since 2001.

In the press conference immediately following the announcement of the hike, Jerome Powell let markets know that he was wide open to the possibility of another hike come September. “I would say it’s certainly possible that we will raise funds again at the September meeting if the data warranted. And I would also say it’s possible that we would choose to hold steady and we’re going to be making careful assessments, as I said, meeting by meeting,” stated Powell.

The economy, based the incoming data, seems to be moving in the correct direction. U.S. chief economist at RSM, Joe Brusuelas, feels that the Fed could begin to back down, saying “With the Fed’s latest rate increase of 25 basis points now in the books, we think that improvement in the underlying pace of inflation, cooler job creation and modest growth are creating the conditions where the Fed can effectively end its rate hike campaign.”

Thursday marked the release of the GDP report, showing economic growth of 2.4% in the United States. A sign that the economy may experience the soft landing that nobody thought was possible.

Do you believe a soft landing is possible?

Big Tech Earnings

GOOGL 0.00%↑

Earnings: $1.44 per share vs. $1.34 per share expected

Revenue: $74.6 billion vs. $72.82 billion expected

YouTube ads: $7.67 billion vs. $7.43 billion expected

Google Cloud: $8.03 billion vs. $7.87 billion expected

Traffic acquisition costs:  $12.54 billion vs. $12.37 billion expected

MSFT 0.00%↑

Earnings: $2.69 per share vs. $2.55 per share expected

Revenue: $56.19 billion vs. $55.47 billion expected

SNAP 0.00%↑

Earnings: 2 cent loss vs. 4 cent loss expected

Revenue: $1.07 billion vs. $1.05 billion expected

Global Daily Active Users (DAUs): 397 million vs. 394.9 million expected

Average revenue per user: $2.69 vs. $2.68 expected

META 0.00%↑

Earnings: $2.98 per share vs. $2.91 expected

Revenue: $32 billion vs. $31.12 billion expected

Daily Active Users (DAUs):  2.06 billion vs. 2.04 billion expected

Monthly Active Users (MAUs): 3.03 billion vs. 3 billion expected

Average Revenue per User (ARPU): $10.63 vs. $10.22 expected

A look ahead…

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