X CEO Linda Yaccarino is striking an optimistic tone about the social media platform’s progress under Elon Musk, insisting the company has strong momentum.
Speaking to Yahoo Finance at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, Yaccarino described X as undergoing a “historic evolution,” adding, “96% of our advertisers [are] coming back and a tidal wave of new advertisers coming back.”
Her remarks come in the wake of a Wall Street Journal report claiming that X has threatened legal action against ad buyers like Verizon (VZ) and Ralph Lauren (RL) unless they increased their ad spending. The outlet noted at least six companies reportedly agreed to new ad deals after facing pressure.
“There was no comment in the article [from us],” Yaccarino said. “There was also no named sources in the article. They had some random third parties comment on unnamed sources. So with the absence of both facts and named sources, and then the absence of the setup of the story, which was the House Judiciary Committee’s findings and evidence that addressed a real coming together to boycott the platform.”
According to the WSJ, a spokesperson for X declined to comment on the article.
Since Elon Musk finalized his $44 billion acquisition of X (formerly Twitter) in October 2022, the company has experienced significant turbulence. The Musk era began with sweeping layoffs and mounting concern over content moderation, leading to a steep drop in ad revenue — reportedly over 50% by January 2023.
To help steer the company’s commercial turnaround, Musk tapped former NBCUniversal executive Linda Yaccarino, who officially took over as CEO on June 5, 2023.
Her leadership has involved navigating controversial tweets by Musk, his vocal backing of Donald Trump, reactions to his ties to Dogecoin, and the public falling-out between Musk and President Biden. When asked if Musk’s Trump alignment has affected ad sales, Yaccarino deflected.
Despite these headwinds, market research firm eMarketer projects X’s global ad revenue will rise 16.5% in 2025 to $2.26 billion, which would mark the first increase since Musk’s takeover. In 2022, X brought in $2.36 billion in global ad sales.
Yaccarino noted the projection doesn’t account for X’s broader revenue streams, including premium subscriptions and its developer data platform. These initiatives support Musk’s vision of transforming X into an “everything app.” Twitter reported $5.08 billion in revenue in 2021 and $2.38 billion in the first half of 2022, alongside 237.8 million monetizable daily active users at the time.
X no longer discloses daily active user or total revenue data, but Yaccarino said the platform now has nearly 600 million monthly active users.
Meanwhile, competition is intensifying. Meta (META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during the company’s Q1 earnings call that its X-rival Threads had surpassed 350 million monthly active users. Snap (SNAP) announced in April that Snapchat now has over 900 million monthly active users. In comparison, more than 3.4 billion people used at least one Meta app in March.
Yaccarino also confirmed that X will roll out X Money later this year, a peer-to-peer payment system. She added that investment and trading functions could follow.
“A big lure for creators on the platform will be [the ability] to buy merchandise and tip a creator,” she said. “Imagine the content that then flocks to the platform. So a whole commerce ecosystem will really emerge and thrive on the platform.”
While X pursues innovation, other platforms are facing regulatory heat. TikTok, for instance, faces a looming June 19 deadline to divest its U.S. operations.
“We don’t think any platform being banned is good for the ecosystem,” Yaccarino said. Under Musk, X has overhauled its content moderation and fact-checking infrastructure in favor of what it calls free speech.
The platform was temporarily banned in Brazil after a standoff with courts over misinformation. While critics argue moderation was dismantled, an X spokesperson clarified: “We replaced the existing content moderation system with Community Notes, which now has 1 million contributors worldwide and is adopted by Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok.”
Still, a study from the University of Southern California found that between January 2022 and June 2023, hate speech in English-language posts on X surged — with transphobic slurs up 260%, homophobic content rising 30%, and racist tweets increasing 42%.
In March, Musk’s AI company xAI completed a $33 billion acquisition of X — a markdown from the $44 billion he originally paid. Musk said the platform’s value stands at $45 billion excluding $12 billion in acquisition debt.
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