X saw 53 percent Q2 revenue decline while friends ‘have begged’ CEO Linda Yaccarino to quit
https://awfulannouncing.com/twitter/x-revenue-ceo-linda-yaccarino-begged-quit.html
By Andrew Bucholtz on 07/28/2024share
One of the fascinating questions around X (formerly Twitter) is if the business can keep going despite advertisers (including many in sports) leaving in droves. That’s a key part of the many things discussed in a new New York Times profile piece on X CEO Linda Yaccarino, who suddenly left a role as chair of global advertising and partnerships at NBC last May (just ahead of their upfronts) to take the top executive role at the social media service under owner Elon Musk. And that piece has a lot of uncomplimentary things to say about the state of X’s business, especially on the advertising front.
The advertising element of X is particularly notable on a few fronts. For one, it’s highly related to Yaccarino’s previous background, which includes 19 years at what was then Turner (including time as executive vice president and chief operating officer of advertising sales, marketing, and acquisitions) and then more than 11 years at NBC in roles ranging from president, cable entertainment and digital advertising sales up through her eventual chair of global advertising role. For another, it’s a key part of what was working for the company before Musk’s 2022 acquisition of Twitter for $43 billion (which actually came that October after he tried to back out of the deal and was forced into it by a lawsuit from the board).
Beyond that, advertising is one of the specific areas where Musk-era X is far different from its predecessor Twitter. And it’s an area where it’s been particularly under fire, including in sports, with many big sports broadcasters pausing advertising or pulling out altogether last fall after Musk’s lackluster response to their content being shown next to antisemitic posts. So that makes some of the discussion in that Times piece (from the Times‘ Kate Conger, with files from Ryan Mac, Benjamin Mullin, David McCabe and Sapna Maheshwari) quite significant. To start with, here’s what it says about revenue, with the outside advertising estimate previously reported on but the internal documents new to the public (and keep in mind that under Musk, X is not a public company, so its revenue numbers are not regularly reported).