Elon Musk’s has rebranded Twitter as “X”. Photo / Alex Robertson
Elon Musk’s has rebranded Twitter as “X”. Photo / Alex Robertson
Elon Musk’s latest jape has been to rebrand Twitter as “X”.
The rapid-fire process was helped along by the fact that Musk already owned X.com.
One of Musk’s earliest projects was an online bank called X.com, which after a merger with a competitor morphed into the online payment service PayPal- launched in 1999 and sold to Ebay for US$1.5 billion in 2002. Musk bought back the (now unused) X.com in 2017, citing “sentimental reasons”. He did not give a price, but at the time it was noted that z.com had sold for US$6.8m in 2014.
But if the Twitter owner wants to scoop up some local X domains, he’ll discover they’re already taken.
X.co.nz is registered by Spark, which has ownership through to July 12 next year - or longer if it renews its registration.
“This domain name was acquired by Spark (then Telecom) almost 20 years ago in connection with our Xtra Mail service,” a spokeswoman said.
When the Herald tried it, X.co.nz led to a blank page.
X.org.nz is registered by property industry figure, socially conservative commentator and sometimes OneRoof and NewstalkZB contributor Ashley Church (it redirects to his YouTube channel). Church is also something of a Musk fan. “This guy deserves every ounce of support that we can give to him,” he tweeted in November last year as Musk released files he claimed showed “free speech suppression” under the platform’s previous owners.
“I’ve been a smallscale trader in internet domains over the years and it was one of those purchases,“ Church said.
“Occasionally I develop them as sites - but mostly I sell if the opportunity presents.”
Would he part with “X”?
“Yep, I’d sell it to Musk. I strongly support what he’s doing,” Church said.
X.gen.nz is registered to the street address of Reynold Macpherson, a conservative who ran unsuccessfully for Rotorua Mayor last year.
And X.nz and X.net.nz have been snaffled by Wellington IT firm GoCloud systems.
GoCloud director David Brabant tells the Herald he brokered the sale of “Z.co.nz” to Z Energy for “a lot of money” as Shell’s former NZ operations were rebranded in 2011.
While not many people would go to a website to read about their petrol company, Brabant says brands also don’t like IP to be outside their control - like if “Z.co.nz” was owned by a porn company”.
Maybe not. The golden age of cybersquatting may have passed, given we’re now in the area of predictive text and search for everything, with few bothering to type a URL anymore.
Still, if Elon is interested, will Spark do a deal for X.co.nz?
“His people can call our people,” a spokeswoman for the telco said.
Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer. He is considering a re-brand as Xris Keall.
