Linda Yaccarino Talks X's 'Liberation from Twitter' and What, Exactly, Elon Musk Is Now 'Responsible' For The chief executive of X spoke to CNBC in her first-ever interview as CEO.
By Emily Rella
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It's been three months since Linda Yaccarino was officially announced as Elon Musk's successor as CEO of X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
Though Yaccarino has remained active on the platform, even touting lengthy anecdotes about the company's rebranding, she's remained relatively silent to the media about her takeover — until this week.
Related: Linda Yaccarino Is The New CEO Of Twitter
In her first formal sit-down interview since taking over X, Yaccarino spoke to CNBC about the company's debt and what she hopes to build the company out to in the near and far future.
"Coca Cola, Visa, State Farm is a huge partner, they're coming back — the last bunch of weeks, continued revenue growth," Yaccarino told the outlet, referring to the company's biggest advertisers and noting that X was "close to breakeven."
Twitter has been bleeding advertisers since Musk's acquisition of the company last November for $44 billion, with a February 2023 report showing that more than half of the platform's top 1,000 advertisers had stopped their services.
Yaccarino also distinguished between her role and Musk's at the company, and how that will shape the future of X.
Related: Twitter Is Now Officially 'X': 'There's Absolutely No Limit to This Transformation'
"Elon is working on accelerating the rebrand and working on the future," she said. "And I'm responsible for the rest. Running the company, from partnerships to legal to sales to finance."
Musk's current title at X is Chief of Technology.
Yaccarino then touched on the rebranding of Twitter to X, and why the change was so important to the overall evolution of the platform.
"The rebrand represented really a liberation from Twitter," she explained. "A liberation that allowed us to evolve past a legacy mindset and thinking. And to reimagine how everyone, how everyone on Spaces who's listening, everybody who's watching around the world. It's going to change how we congregate, how we entertain, how we transact all in one platform."
Twitter officially became X, a.k.a. the "everything app" last month, with Musk announcing the rollout via the platform.
The billionaire has been teasing the concept of X for quite some time, even saying at the time of his acquisition that he hoped Twitter would serve as an "accelerant" for X.
Yaccarino was equally as excited about the rebrand at the time, teasing a bright and big future for the X community.
"For years, fans and critics alike have pushed Twitter to dream bigger, to innovate faster, and to fulfill our great potential," she said at the time. "X will do that and more."
