Virgin Hyperloop, a firm working to realise Elon Musk’s idea of super-fast trains, is engaged in something. The business, which formerly went by the name Hyperloop One from 2016 to 2017, secretly changed its name at some time in the past few weeks. Its website has also been completely redesigned, utilising an outdated stock photo of the XP-1 test pod and the phrase “It’s a new day at Hyperloop One,” among other things.
The Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram accounts have all switched back to the previous logo and name, proving that this isn’t just a website problem. Additionally, the change must have occurred recently because a tweet from October 22 still featured the Virgin name and emblem. Although we are unable to speculate as to what specifically caused the change, it seems to be an intentional de-branding attempt. It appears that Virgin and Richard Branson are no longer willing to share a brand with the logistics firm.
The corporation underwent a number of changes this year, including the termination of 111 employees and the abandonment of its much-publicized attempt to develop a passenger system. Following that, the company’s principal owner, DP World, declared that it would shift its focus to leveraging technology for logistics, enabling the development of “inland ports” to get cargo containers to their final destinations more quickly than under the current system.
