Elon Musk is taking Twitter to the dark side

Twitter owner Elon Musk says that he is going to switch the social network to dark mode, ditching the familiar light mode look that has been around since its inception. However, Musk did at least relent on initial plans to make that the only option - light mode will now remain available for those who want it.

That doesn't mean that Musk hasn't killed something off as part of the switch, though. The current option to use a "Dim" mode is being removed. That mode was similar to dark mode but wasn't quite as dark - it used a dark blue background instead of the black of dark mode proper.

Musk said that a lot of people had asked for light mode to stick around, so it does appear that he is listening to feedback here. Reading text in dark mode in brighter conditions can be surprisingly difficult at times which is why many apps can automatically switch between light and dark mode when the system does - and people can configure their phones to invoke different modes at different times of the day.

There is no public timeline for when dark mode will become the default, but Musk and Twitter have bigger fish to fry. The rebrand from Twitter to X is ongoing and the move away from social network to 'everything app' is underway. X could one day turn into something similar to China's WeChat, a messaging app that also includes payments and other services all under one roof. That's Musk's aim at least, but it remains to be seen if that's something he can achieve.