San Francisco photographer Gene Hwang had owned the handle since 2007, per multiple reports

Following this week’s Twitter X makeover, a Californian guy lost his handle.

According to NBC News and Insider, San Francisco photographer Gene X Hwang was forced to give up the handle @x on Tuesday after possessing it since 2007.

Despite not having spoken to the social media business earlier, Hwang told Mashable that he had received an email from them “basically saying they are taking it.”

In addition, he asserted that despite claims to the contrary, neither did the corporation compensate him financially for unexpectedly losing his handle nor did they express regret.

“Some amount of money or compensation doesn’t seem like it would be too big a deal for them,” Hwang said to Insider. I was not attempting to extort money or anything of the sort, but I would have welcomed something in exchange.

They did provide him with some stuff though, along with “an exclusive visit to X’s HQ to meet members of our team.”

The letter to Hwang, who is now known by the pseudonym @x12345678998765, stated, “We appreciate your loyalty and want to minimize the inconvenience this will cause.”

According to Mashable, Hwang stated that he “probably will not take them up on the offer to meet,” but that he still intends to use the site for the time being.

The photographer admitted that his initial expectations for the branding were for “something cool” to transpire.

According to Hwang, “it was kind of like the fantasy of a winning lottery ticket.” “You buy the ticket, and there’s a little bit of hope that maybe you’ll win something, but you also know that’s probably not going to happen.”

Hwang posted the phrase “Alls well that ends well” in his first post since changing his username.

On Sunday, 52-year-old Musk utilized the site to make the name change official.

“X Corp bought Twitter in order to protect free speech and as a boost for X, the all-encompassing app.This isn’t just a case of a corporation changing its name; it’s actually doing the same thing,” he added.
The name Twitter made sense when there were only back-and-forth 140 character messages – like birds tweeting – but now you can publish nearly anything, including several hours of video.

“We will add comprehensive communications and the capability to conduct your entire financial world in the months to come,” he continued. We must say goodbye to the bird because the Twitter name is meaningless in that situation.

For the time being, X.com points users to Twitter.com, where they can still “tweet” and “retweet.”

The new logo for the company appears to resemble what’s called a Unicode character known as “Mathematical Double-Struck Capital X,” according to NBC News. The company told the outlet that X is “free to use” all Unicode characters.

Hundreds of companies, including tech giants Meta and Microsoft, already have trademarks on the letter X, NBC News and Reuters reported.

Microsoft trademarked the letter in connection with Xbox, its widely popular video-game console, since 2003, according to Reuters. Meta received its trademark to use a blue-and-white X in software and social media in 2019.