Sources detail how Elon Musk undermined CEO Linda Yaccarino's efforts to repair X's business over the past year; X's US revenue fell 53% YoY to $114M in Q2
Linda Yaccarino, the C.E.O. of X, has worked hard to bring back advertisers and fix the platform's business.
New York TimesKate Conger
Context & Ripple Effects
X hired Linda Yaccarino to rebuild advertiser relationships, but related coverage had already described growing tension between Yaccarino and Musk as she tried to stabilize the business. The reported revenue decline makes that leadership friction a commercial issue, not merely an internal-management dispute.
The episode highlights the limits of assigning a business-repair mandate to a CEO when the controlling owner can shape the platform’s advertiser appeal and operating direction.
First-order effects
X’s advertising-recovery effort becomes harder: a 53% year-over-year drop in U.S. revenue leaves Yaccarino with less evidence that advertiser outreach is reversing the business’s decline.
Musk’s reported interventions weaken Yaccarino’s ability to offer advertisers a consistent point of accountability for X’s commercial strategy.
Second-order effects
Advertisers that had considered returning have greater reason to wait for clearer operational stability, while rival platforms can position their ad products as lower-risk alternatives for brand budgets.
X may face added pressure to find revenue sources less exposed to advertiser confidence, because a CEO-led sales recovery cannot by itself resolve owner-driven uncertainty.
Third-order effects
If this pattern persists, advertiser-supported platforms may place a higher premium on governance structures that separate an owner’s public conduct from executives’ commitments to customers.
The case points to a broader shift in which brand-safety and management predictability become competitive product attributes, rather than issues confined to communications or sales teams.
The trend: Owner-led platforms are testing whether centralized control can coexist with the institutional predictability advertisers expect from major media businesses.
NYT says X US revenue fell 53% YoY in their Q2 to $114M. This is down from $661M, dropping 83% from 2Q22- the last report before Elon took Twitter private. 💸 https://www.nytimes.com/...
Elon's attempts to win over Trump are likely driven by his need for Trump's campaign advertising dollars to boost X's struggling business. X internal documents show that in the second quarter of this year, X earned $114 million in revenue in the US, which is a 25% drop from the …
Elon's move to cut Twitter to the bone is especially loved by a group that sees themselves as the victors of Thunderdome. These folks listen to the All In pod because they hope one day they will be rich enough to be as horrible as David Sacks.
I think you can believe that Twitter was grossly over-staffed, badly managed and dysfunctional before Elon bought it and ALSO believe that he fired far too many people in the wrong way without fixing anything much.
Just last week someone said “Twitter proved you can cut 80% of staff and it's fine” and I responded “but they also lost 80% of revenue”. — The next turn in the conversation is usually to insist the two facts have nothing to do with each other and I think that radically misunder…
“The mark of a good C.E.O. is not how many punches you can throw, but how many you can take. She is the Muhammad Ali of C.E.O.s,” said Ari Emanuel, the chief executive of the entertainment agency Endeavor, which is an investor in X. Except those punches usually come from, you kn…
Linda Yaccarino torched her reputation so she could be “CEO” of a company whose revenues declined 53 percent year over year. A down side of a career spent sucking up to power is that power doesn't care about your problems, and will happily spit you out when the time comes
“After the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, for instance, Ms. Yaccarino told several major advertisers that she and X would work to fight antisemitism. The next month, Mr. Musk approvingly replied to an antisemitic theory on the site.” — after some point, you're not a victim, you're c…
In case you need the nuts and bolts timeline of how Linda Yaccarino became a lead roach in Trump's media operations, here it is. Stop defending her. — cw: The New York Times [embedded post]
this is an article about how the ambitiousness of otherwise decent people will cause them to compromise all their values and relationships in the pursuit of feeding their ego [embedded post]
The article leads with Musk petulantly cancelling a major Twitter deal because he didn't like being asked questions. Which turns this quote from his friend that was meant to defend Yaccarino into an accidental insult of Musk. [embedded post]
@Carnage4Life We just had a story about how Amazon burned $25 billion on Alexa. There are like 50 better examples of destroying value in tech on a grand scale.
Elon successfully cut 80% of staff without collapsing the site but unfortunately also lost over 80% of the revenue which means negative progress has been made on salvaging X's business https://www.nytimes.com/...
Twitter's US revenue has dropped -83% from $661M in Q2 of 2022 to $114M in Q2 of 2024. Every attempt Linda Yaccarino has come up with to generate revenue has been scuttled by impulsive behavior from Elon Musk. It's the greatest destruction of value in tech this decade. [image]
LOL, so much for “free speech”🙄. A “free-speech absolutist” as long as the free speech isn't directed at him and doesn't require him to answer uncomfortable questions. Effing lily-livered hypocritical man baby. Plus a fascist in bed with war criminals. https://www.nytimes.com/...
Just like writing puff pieces about Usha Vance and Melania Trump: Horrid men and the women who support them. How Do You Solve a Problem Like Elon? https://www.nytimes.com/...