> That's is however also rather genius, because now the connection between X and "social media" is strengthened every time it's mentioned.

If that was true we'd be getting closer to a point where you could mention "X" without having to further specify what you're talking about, which doesn't seem to be happening any time soon. Maybe more to the point, "Twitter" already had that instant association that Musk totally threw away.

But I actually think changing the branding of the platform was far less dumb than the related necessary changing of terminology associated with using the platform. Twitter managed to associate a unique word for posting on their platform, "tweet", that became widely used and an instantly recognizable reference to using their social media platform specifically even if you didn't mention their name. You could "post" any of a dozen places, you could only "tweet" on Twitter. That's the kind of branding that doesn't happen often and a company would kill for, and Musk threw it away in favor of the same "post" terminology that literally every competitor also uses.