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X chief Yaccarino claims renamed Twitter 'close' to break-even

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Agence France-Presse

<div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img alt="An illustration pictures shows a user holding a mobile phone displaying the " logo="" in="" front="" of="" Elon="" page="" Los="" July="" Twitter="" announced="" on="" that="" it="" will="" rebrand="" to="" X.="" Etienne="" src="https://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2023/overseas/07/31/20230731-x.jpg"/><figcaption>An illustration pictures shows a user holding a mobile phone displaying the &#x27;X&#x27; logo in front of Elon Musk&#x27;s page in Los Angeles, California, USA, July 27, 2023. Twitter announced on July 23 that it will rebrand to X. Etienne Laurent, EPA-EFE</figcaption></figure></div>SAN FRANCISCO, United States - Linda Yaccarino, CEO of social media platform X, said Thursday that the company formerly known as Twitter is &quot;close&quot; to breaking even and is hiring to beef up a staff slashed by owner Elon Musk.Yaccarino shared the news during a CNBC interview in which she defended the safety of the platform as well as Musk&#x27;s decision to replace its globally recognized name with X.<ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/business/07/28/23/former-twitter-exec-says-a-mercurial-musk-rules-by-gut">Former Twitter exec says a mercurial Musk rules by &#x27;gut&#x27;</a></li></ul>The former ad exec claimed that brands are returning to the X platform, naming Coca Cola, Visa and State Farm as being among them.She credited, in part, X&#x27;s policy of allowing users to post anything legal, no matter how &quot;awful,&quot; but stopping it from being shared or benefiting from advertising.&quot;If it is lawful but it&#x27;s awful, it&#x27;s extraordinarily difficult for you to see it,&quot; Yaccarino contended.However she skirted a question about where misinformation or unfounded conspiracy theories, perhaps even promoted by Musk himself, fit into that formula.<ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/classified-odd/07/04/23/elon-musk-spreads-misleading-climate-claims-on-twitter">Elon Musk spreads misleading climate claims on Twitter</a></li></ul>Musk said last month in an exchange on what was then called Twitter that the company was &quot;still negative cash flow&quot; due to a drop of around 50 percent in advertising revenue &quot;plus heavy debt load.&quot;<figure class="op-interactive"><iframe height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y3TYh3sNGJ4?enablejsapi=1" width="560"></iframe></figure><div class="iwantbar">Watch more News on <a href="https://www.iwanttfc.com/#!/browse/Genres/News/tag_id_genres/id_news" target="_blank">iWantTFC</a></div>But Yaccarino said in the interview Thursday that X was &quot;pacing well&quot; and &quot;pretty close to break-even.&quot;She also added that the company was on a hiring bend, after Musk cut the Twitter employee ranks from 8,000 workers down to about 1,500 following his $44 billion acquisition last October.As marketers soured on Musk&#x27;s management style and mass firings, which gutted content moderation, the platform&#x27;s advertising business collapsed.In response, the entrepreneur has moved toward getting users to pay subscriptions and third-party apps to pay for access to the platform to bring in revenue.Musk has said that he wants to create a super-app inspired by China&#x27;s WeChat, which would function as a social media platform and also offer messaging and payments.&quot;If you stay Twitter, or you stay whatever your previous brand is, change tends to be only incremental and you get graded by a legacy report card,&quot; Yaccarino said of changing the name to X.She said that Musk has been focusing on product design, while she runs the rest of the company.&quot;Elon works on the technology, dreams of what&#x27;s next, then passes the baton to me,&quot; Yaccarino said.&quot;I bring it to market.&quot;She played off the potential cage match between Musk and Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg as possibly being no more than a &quot;humorous back and forth&quot; between the billionaires.<ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/business/07/07/23/musk-threatens-lawsuit-as-twitter-rival-threads-takes-off">Musk threatens lawsuit as Twitter rival Threads takes off</a></li></ul>&quot;I don&#x27;t think I will be on the undercard for the cage match,&quot; Yaccarino quipped.&quot;We&#x27;ll see if that cage match really does happen.&quot;She added that she saw Musk training for combat last week in San Francisco, so that much is for sure.gc/des<div>© Agence France-Presse</div>

Linda Yaccarino, CEO of social media platform X, said Thursday that the company formerly known as Twitter is 'close' to breaking even and is hiring to beef up a staff slashed by owner Elon Musk.