X CEO Linda Yaccarino took the stage at the Code Conference on Wednesday, shortly after Yoel Roth, former head of Trust and Safety at Twitter, made a surprise appearance in an interview with journalist Kara Swisher.
Asked to respond to Roth’s comments, in which he said that
‘Yoel and I don’t know each other. He doesn’t know me. I do not know him. I work at X. He worked at Twitter. X is a new company building a foundation based on free speech and expression. Twitter at the time operated under a different set of rules as he laid it out, different philosophies and ideologies that went the route of censorship. It’s a new day at X. And I’ll leave it at that,” Yaccarino said.
In the tense interview with CNBC’s Julia Boorstin, Yaccarino often referred to Roth’s comments as not being up to date with the current state of the company, which she said has seen 90 percent of the top 100 advertisers move to in the last twelve years the platform had returned. weeks, following reports that advertisers were leaving the platform amid fears of rising hate speech and other unsavory content. She didn’t provide an exact number on the platform’s current daily active users, but said she thought it was around 200-250 million.
Yaccarino was named CEO of the social media platform in May after serving as head of ad sales at NBCUniversal.
Asked if she had been consulted before Musk posted that last week X will charge everyone To use the platform, Yaccarino asked, “Did he say we were going there specifically or is he thinking about it?” And then said, “We talk about everything.”
When asked if she supports the idea of not having a free version of the platform given her background in advertising, Yaccarino did not answer directly, but said she was not just about advertising on the platform.
“Do you think Elon brought me into the company to be head of advertising – which I appreciate because of Kara’s comments about how great of an ad person I am – or do you think he brought me in to run the company and work on our users to deliver? the best possible experience?” she asked.
When later asked if she is really in a CEO role, given that the product team reports to Musk, rather than Yaccarino as CEO, she praised Musk’s technical skills.
“He manages the product. He manages the technology. He leads a team of exceptionally talented engineers, and who is fooling whom? I don’t care what the structure is at Meta, but who wouldn’t want Elon Musk sitting next to them to run the product?” she asked. Many spectators then laughed and raised their hands.
Yaccarino also had to deal with a series of recent changes at X, including a report in De Informatie On Wednesday, the social media platform announced that about half of its global team had been cut to help curb disinformation and election fraud on the platform. She called it “partial information” and said two people had been added to the team today.
“It is an issue that we take very seriously. And contrary to the comments that have been made, at she said.
She also spoke about the dispute between Musk and the Anti-Defamation League, in which Muskssays has called on advertisers to leave the platform due to the increase in hateful content. He has threatened to sue the league in response. Yaccarino said ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt “continues to question progress when it comes to anti-Semitism” and added, “I wish that were different. We are investigating that.”
In the earlier interview, Roth said: who says he was forced to flee his home after receiving death threats following Musk’s release of internal communications, was asked to provide advice to Yaccarino. He suggested she think about her own safety working for Musk. Yaccarino said she has taken precautions.
“The team at Twitter is fantastic. When you talk about my own personal well-being and safety, I feel great,” she said.
