It has been more than a year since Linda Yaccarino was appointed the CEO of X, formerly known as Twitter—one of the most covered current events. Upon becoming the new CEO for X, Yaccarino expressed her enthusiasm for the new project and shared that he had been a person to whom she looked up. Now, the Financial Times reports that Yaccarino faces pressure to cut costs and boost revenue for X.
The report adds that such pressure from Musk has prompted Yaccarino to make some bold moves recently with her executive team. Sources close to the matter say that in the strategic shake-up, it includes ousting her right-hand man, Joe Benarroch, who was the head of business operations and communications.
According to the Financial Times, Benarroch was held responsible for botched planning in the roll-out of a new adult content policy where he did not brief clients before the changes became public. That mistake, two X workers said, especially proved instrumental in his exit. For context, having joined in June 2023, Benarroch came in from Comcast’s NBCUniversal, where he had direct reporting to Yaccarino.
The leadership reshuffle reportedly comes when tension between Musk and Yaccarino has markedly increased. The X CEO, who was recruited by Musk from NBCUniversal, is facing unprecedented pressure to stabilize the financial health of X. Sources within the company told Financial Times that Yaccarino has become more anxious than usual about meeting Musk’s demand to increase the revenue and slash expenses. This has involved cutting the sales teams in both the US and UK and cutting spend on a host of items, including travel.
A report of an all-hands at X had recently emerged. Led by Yaccarino, during the all-hands, she told employees to share Musk’s recent venture x.AI but said very little about how X’s advertising business has been performing of late.
A report in The Verge had said that performance reviews of the company were to be raised in the meet amid growing concerns. Apart from this, the process of promotions at X has been delayed without explaining the reason behind it, the report added. Not only this, the sales team at X was not expecting to meet its revenue targets for the quarter, the insiders told the publication. Another source at X also informed the publication that the company had laid off a “handful” of people recently.
Sources also told The Verge that Steve Davis, the CEO of The Boring Company and a member of Musk’s inner circle, has been at the books in X’s San Francisco headquarters for the past few weeks. This caused further angst amongst the staff.
In this regard, the employees wanted to have more insights into the performance review process of the company and the business performance of X from the all-hands meeting conducted by the CEO of X. In this scenario, the report from The Verge, however indicated that employees heard less about the two points mentioned above.
Elon Musk reportedly puts pressure on X CEO Linda Yaccarino to increase sales and reduce expenses.
