The Twitter.now launch puts a new social network using Twitter’s old name online before the courts have decided whether Elon Musk’s X Corp. abandoned the associated trademarks. Operation Bluebird, a Virginia startup, announced the service Monday, according to Ars Technica. The company says it is independent of X Corp., which rebranded Twitter in 2023.
That makes the launch less of a nostalgia project than a live trademark fight with a feed attached. Twitter.now has replies and retweets and had only hundreds of users when Ars reported on it. Its backers are betting that X’s decision to discard the Twitter name, bird logo and “tweet” terminology left room for someone else to use them.
Stephen Coates, an Operation Bluebird cofounder and the new service’s general counsel, told Ars that the startup had waited for months and would not delay longer. Coates previously served as general counsel at Twitter before Musk’s takeover, the publication reported.
Has a court ruled that X abandoned the Twitter trademark?
No final written ruling had been issued when Ars Technica reported the launch. At an April 2026 hearing, U.S. District Judge Colm Connolly reportedly gave a tentative oral view that X appeared to have relinquished intellectual-property claims over “tweet” and the bird logo, and perhaps “Twitter” as well.
That is not a final determination that X lost the marks. Operation Bluebird says its position is that X abandoned rights to the Twitter and tweet trademarks. X Corp. has the opposite incentive and has already acted on it: Ars reported that the company sued Operation Bluebird in late 2025 in federal court in Delaware and sought a preliminary injunction to block the service’s launch.
Trademark attorney Josh Gerben told Ars that the startup may have a workable abandonment argument, while cautioning that the case is far from settled. He expected X to respond now that the product is operating.
What does the new Twitter.now offer?
The service resembles the old text-focused network in its basic mechanics, but Operation Bluebird is pitching a moderation layer as the difference. It runs an automated tool called Vera on every post, according to Ars. The company describes Vera as a Gemini-based system for real-time fact analysis.
Coates has tested the tool by publishing plainly false statements, Ars reported. He said the company wants a less harmful public forum and favors allowing users to speak while declining to amplify harmful or inaccurate viral material. Those are the company’s stated goals, not evidence that the system can reliably judge claims at scale.
Musk set this sequence in motion when he changed Twitter’s brand and bird logo to X in July 2023, saying he intended to retire the Twitter identity over time, according to PBS News and the BBC. Whether that rebrand also surrendered enforceable rights is now the part a court still has to decide.
X Corp., Musk and one of X’s lawyers did not immediately respond to Ars Technica’s requests for comment.
This story draws on original reporting from Ars Technica.
