Following Elon Musk’s takeover of ‘X’, formerly known as Twitter, the social networking company cut more than half of its personnel, but according to Linda Yaccarino, X’s CEO, it has begun recruiting again.
In an interview with CNBC on Thursday, Yaccarino said as she comes in, the focus shifts from cost containment to growth. And growth entails recruiting.
She noted that the ‘X’ has not listed any open positions on the company’s careers webpage or its LinkedIn page.
Yaccarino, who joined X in June after leaving her role as the chairman of global advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal, said the company’s operational run rate is near breaking even. She also said that the company’s relationship with advertisers, which had suffered since Musk took over Twitter in October 2022, was improving and that some of the advertisers that had left were already returning to the platform.
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“We’re a company that has gone from 8,000 people and has gone through a very necessary cost-discipline exercise to about 1,500 people so it makes sense that there wouldn’t be some type of impact of presence with these people,” Yaccarino said of the impact of the layoffs on the company’s relationship with advertisers.
Yaccarino also commented on her working relationship with Musk, who owns X through his holding company X Corp. She said that Musk gives her “autonomy” and that their roles are very clear. “Elon is working on accelerating the rebrand and working on the future,” Yaccarino said. “And I’m responsible for the rest. Running the company, from partnerships to legal to sales to finance.”
Musk surprised many when he announced his plans to buy Twitter for $44 billion in April 2022. He later changed the name of the company to X and said he wanted to transform it into an “everything app” similar to China’s WeChat. He also fired several top executives, including former CEO Parag Agrawal, and cut more than 6,000 jobs. He also clashed with Twitter’s management and moderation policies and said he would reverse bans on suspended users, including former US President Donald Trump.
Yaccarino said that X is focused on its own future and vision and that it is not worried about competition from other platforms. She said that X offers a unique platform for users to communicate, entertain, transact, and create content. She also said that X is using artificial intelligence to automate the production of its content and reduce costs.
