😵 X marks the spot where...?

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Tonight: Twitter is now X. Don't x-pect a whole lot from the rebrand. Plus: Is a FedEx strike imminent? Let's get into it.

By Elisabeth Buchwald

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Last updated July 24 at 7:44 PM ET

😵 X MARKS THE SPOT WHERE...?

Billionaires — they're just like us. They get bored easily. Except when they get bored they don't endlessly scroll on TikTok or attempt to give themselves bangs. Instead, they launch useless rebrands.

At least that's the best explanation I can offer for why Elon Musk decided to rebrand Twitter to "X," either in a nod to his son he originally named X Æ A-12, or to his other "son," SpaceX.

"It's an exceptionally rare thing – in life or in business – that you get a second chance to make another big impression," Linda Yaccarino, X's CEO tweeted (or I guess, xed), on Sunday. "Twitter made one massive impression and changed the way we communicate. Now, X will go further, transforming the global town square."

Linda, you truly sent shivers down my spine. I have never had bigger goose bumps in my life. Please do tell me more about this magical new universe.

"X will be the platform that can deliver, well….everything," she said. Everything? I would love it if X could deliver me a coffee right now. No wait, how about $1 billion?

As of writing this, the only noticeable change on the site is the iconic Twitter birdie has been replaced with an X. For those of us who have a tough time dealing with big changes, you can take a bit of comfort in knowing that X's main account is still @Twitter. That's because @X was already claimed by someone whose bio reads, "Very interesting times." I can only imagine the offer X is making them for their username.

But maybe X could really turn into the platform that can deliver, well….everything. But for the time being it looks like X is taking a page out of Meta's book.

Some background: Elon Musk shelled out $44 billion last October to buy Twitter. A series of controversial changes he put in place didn't exactly sit well with advertisers.

Since Musk took over, ad revenue declined by 50% and the company is now worth at least less than half of the sum for which he bought it for, by his own admission.

Musk hasn't given up. He continues to try to come up with new ways to get people to pay for a blue check mark like limiting the number of tweets/x's non-subscribers can view in a given day.

Along came Threads: Mark Zuckerberg, the master of launching a distraction rebrand when times are tough, seized the opportunity. When more users had just about had it with what was then Twitter, Zuckerberg fast-tracked the launch of Threads, Meta's not-so-subtle rival.

Threads was the talk of the town for a bit after it surpassed 100 million user sign-ups less than a week after it launched. Some even began to question whether Twitter's future was viable. Musk even got a little worried too and threatened to sue Meta.

So you can see why now was an opportune time for Musk to give cough, cough "the media" something else to talk about.

NUMBER OF THE DAY

$337 million

That's how much money "Barbie" raked in at the box office over the weekend globally, according to Boxoffice.com. "Oppenheimer's" debut wasn't too shabby either — it pulled in $174 million in global box office sales.

It seems the simultaneous debuts had mutual benefits, as many moviegoers partook in the "Barbenheimer" phenomenon of watching both movies back-to-back.

"People recognized that something special was happening, and they wanted to be a part of it," Michael O'Leary, president and CEO of the National Associations of Theater Owners in the United States, told CNN.

"Barbie" is produced by Warner Bros. Pictures, which is owned by CNN's parent company Warner Bros. Discovery.

📦 IS A FEDEX STRIKE COMING?

On Monday, pilots for FedEx rejected a tentative labor deal that would have provided a 30% pay increase, as well as a 30% improvement in pension benefits.

If you weren't already worried enough about a potential UPS strike, should you start worrying about a FedEx one too?

Not necessarily, according to my colleague Chris Isidore.

"Even with the 'no' vote, the 5,200 FedEx pilots won't be able to go on strike any time soon," he wrote. "They work under a different labor law than most private sector employees, who are allowed to go on strike when their contracts expire, as is the case with the Teamsters at UPS, who could be on strike as soon as August 1."

FedEx pilots are covered by the Railway Labor Act, which despite the name, covers both rail workers and airline employees. Those are two of the most heavily unionized US industries, and the law places considerable hurdles in the way of any union that wants to strike. The FedEx pilots, who unlike most FedEx employees count as airline employees when it comes to which labor law they work under, have not cleared any of those hurdles so far.

If federally mediated union negotiations reach an impasse, a union can be given permission to strike. But the law allows the president of the United States to step in at the last moment and order workers to stay on the job for a months-long "cooling off periods" while a presidential panel comes up with recommendations as to how to settle the deadlock.