A Scottish lower league football club has accused Elon Musk of 'swiping' the club’s badge for a new logo for his rocket launching company SpaceX.
Amateur side Haddington Town AFC, based in East Lothian, took to Twitter to demand that the billionaire tech mogul “give back” their badge.
The badge, which features the white outline of goat within a circle on a black background, is almost identical to the new SpaceX logo, which appears in a photo shared by Musk on his social media platform X, previously known as Twitter.
The photo, featuring employees gathered at SpaceX’s Starbase spaceport and development facility in Boca Chica, Texas, shows the huge logo emblazoned on the base of SpaceX’s huge ‘Mechazilla”launch tower.
READ MORE: Elon Musk says X will have voice and video calls and updates privacy policy
Haddington Town, who compete in the East of Scotland League Premier Division, were first alerted to the similarity between the clubs badge and the SpaceX logo after a fan tagged them under a tweet of the employee photo-op.
After calling out Musk 'swiped' their logo, the club invited the tech mogul to fund the purchase of new tracksuits, before jokingly announcing that Musk has bought over the club.
The club tweeted: “We can officially announce after the SpaceX teaser that Elon Musk has joined the Goats! You guys were too quick to spot our badge. The club are delighted to have Elon on board, the big man can’t wait to get started.”
The club’s fans have also been expressing their surprise at the similarity of the logos.
I guess the cat is out of the back!
— Haddington Town (@HaddingtonTown) September 15, 2023
We can officially announce after the #SpaceX teaser that @elonmusk has joined the Goats! You guys were too quick to spot our badge.
The club are delighted to have Elon on board, the big man can’t wait to get started.#MonTheGoats pic.twitter.com/RNq8KVbXtU
One supporter wrote: “Elon Musk bleeds haddy red”, while another tweeted that SpaceX “copied the haddy town logo, because haddy town are massive”.
Ryan Leishman, who handles Haddington’s social media, spoke of his surprise at being made aware of the similarity between the club crest and the SpaceX logo.
He told The Herald: “You can imagine my shock yesterday morning when I logged in to X and there was 20 notifications from Americans asking why SpaceX had taken our logo. I’ve no idea who they were and no idea how they found our logo. Not a clue.
“It was a weird thing to wake up to yesterday. I never expected something like this to happen.
READ MORE: Twitter's bird logo scrapped as Elon Musk brings in X emblem
“People are messaging us to say that they didn’t think it was actually our logo and I said, ‘I’m telling you that is the same goat in the circle’. I don’t know what to say, I can’t speak for who made the logo or put it on our badge but it’s the same goat.
“The logo is on our jerseys. I done a bit of looking back and it’s been our logo since we started the club. I don’t know who designed the logo because it was a guy who was at the club way before I got here.
“Not all of us are from Haddington. I’m not. But the town of Haddington has two goat statues. Every bollard on the street has a gold plate of a goat on it for some reason. So that’s the only reason we picked a goat in the first place. Because apparently it’s the animal of Haddington from way back when. It’s on the coat of arms and stuff. So that’s our connection to it.
"We’ve also had messages from people who used to play for the club or were part of the club asking what on Earth has happened."
Haddington Town's next match is against Broomhall FC on Sunday, September 24 at Queensferry High School and Leishman extended an invite to Musk to attend the fixture - and even pull on a pair of boots if he's keen.
He said: “We were joking that, now that Elon wants to jump in with us, we actually needed sponsorship for new tracksuits. We’ll back him in his fight with Mark Zuckerberg if he wants.
“If SpaceX decide to throw some money our way to get us some new kit or tracksuits or something that would be mental. We wouldn’t say no.
“And if Elon wants to come along to a game we’ll put a strip on him and put him in the squad. I think he could do a job upfront, he’s a big laddie. If we wants to come and play he is welcome.”
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