Court blocks rival app from using Twitter name

Chief Judge Colm F. Connolly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware issued a memorandum opinion on 3 September 2026 in X Corp. v. Operation Bluebird, Inc., case 1:25-cv-01510-CFC, Document 95. The opinion grants in part and denies in part X Corp.'s motion for a preliminary injunction. It is not a final judgment on who owns the marks, and it is not a trademark cancellation.

The split is clean. Bluebird is enjoined from using the Twitter-formative marks until the case is resolved, but only if X Corp. posts a $500,000 bond under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65(c). X asked for $500,000. Bluebird argued for at least $50 million. The court set $500,000. The motion is denied as to the Tweet mark and the Bird logo.

The Twitter-name holding turns on the Apple App Store listing. It still says "Welcome to X (formerly known as Twitter)" in the same font and size as the rest of the description. Legal director Naser Baseer testified X added that parenthetical so people searching for Twitter would find the X app. Connolly treated that parenthetical as bona fide use that makes abandonment of the Twitter-formative marks unlikely to be strictly proved at this stage, and he did not decide whether twitter.com redirecting to x.com is also bona fide use.

Bluebird is likely to strictly prove that X discontinued bona fide use of Tweet and the bird logo and intends not to resume. Musk's July 2023 lines about bidding adieu to the Twitter brand and cutting birds off the building were compelling evidence of that intent. Bluebird had filed intent-to-use PTO applications for TWITTER and TWEET on 2 December 2025, plus Bird logo applications, and launched on twitter.new.

After the order, Ars Technica reported Operation Bluebird rebranded toward Tweet.App. President Stephen Coates said, "They kept the word. They let go of the bird, and they let go of the tweet." About 172,000 users had already requested handles. TechCrunch notes the ruling is preliminary and the merits still have to be tried.

A split preliminary injunction is the same class of early court relief as the AdX remedies order that left Google's exchange standing. It is not a completed ownership fight, and it is not the TikTok COPPA settlement or the a16z DOJ board seats probe. Payment-platform deal heat such as Stripe dropping the PayPal bid is a different tape.

Product counsel, brand, and social-platform PMs should treat the Twitter word as still contested under bond-contingent preliminary relief this week, refuse to ship a Twitter-named rival without reading that $500,000 order, and treat Tweet and the bird as unsettled pending the merits rather than a free license to launch.