00:00 Speaker A

We do have some breaking news now. The CEO of Elon Musk's X social platform is stepping down. That's Linda Yaccarino. She says she is immensely grateful to Musk for entrusting her with the quote responsibility of protecting free speech, turning the company around and transforming X into the everything app. Yaccarino was appointed CEO in May of 2023. Joining us now executive editor Brian Sozzi, who just spoke to Linda Yaccarino recently in Cannes, right?

00:33 Brian Sozzi

Hope it wasn't me. Did she give you any any tip offs that this was this was in the works?

00:45 Speaker A

Yes, please.

00:45 Brian Sozzi

No, but let me put some context on this. I think um, in talking to Linda off camera, and then of course, on camera, um, you really got the sense that this job has taken some form of toll. I mean, this has been not your normal CEO job. Now I will say this though. Linda Yaccarino is absolutely tough as nails. You want somebody to go she in a contract, you're putting Linda Yaccarino in there. Uh but I think at the end of the day, and like she hinted to on her post, this is going to be a different company compared to two years ago when she arrived. Um two years ago when she arrived, her main task was to take her experience at, I believe it was NBC Universal and advertising industry and get the program or get the platform back to where it needed to be on ad revenue. While it may not be back to where it was before Elon Musk took over the platform, she has gotten a lot of ad deals back and a lot of ad deals back on the X platform. Check done. Now it it is X, I think is entering its next lifespan. Of course, that merger with XAI, but then of course, a push into something called X money. I asked Linda about that. Here's what she said.

02:34 Linda Yaccarino

The historic turnaround has been just an incredibly joyful thing to an experience and and an incredible outcome to our team at X. Imagine the day-to-day jobs putting the noise out, keeping your head down, doing the work, and now what's been happening under everybody's nose, now they're starting to see it. Oh my god, oh my god, they were they meant what they said and they came and delivered the everything app. So that's what's been so fulfilling and I'm happy for the team.

03:53 Speaker B

So you would do it all over again?

03:57 Linda Yaccarino

In a minute.

04:01 Brian Sozzi

And just literally spending that amount of time with her again, on and off camera and sitting right where we're sitting here, I didn't get the sense that this was her swan song. And she was there for a long pretty time. It can't. It's a very busy event, ton of meetings. I believe I was on her only interview on camera, but this is not about me. I just didn't get the sense that, you know, this was her swan song. I think she was in the trenches still trying to do what she needed to do at X, unclear who's taking over the company, or is it just Elon is just regaining control? And now, look, X is a different platform. If you're going to put payments on this platform, you essentially have a modernized version of PayPal, which of course Elon helped create, except now you have conversations and you're going to have commerce, and that is a different business model than Linda signed up for.

05:21 Speaker A

Well, and it's also got a lot more competition than when PayPal was sort of pioneering that industry and when um when Elon Musk was involved with that company. As an aside, joyful, the word she used, and X are not usually two words that uh that I think of together from a user experience perspective, but that's a whole other uh conversation. What I also think is so interesting here is that this is at a time when Tesla shareholders are not terribly happy with Elon Musk because of his split attention in the political realm and the start of the America party, right? And so is he going to be doing that? And he's if he is indeed going to be now helming X on his own, you have to wonder what shareholders in some of his other companies, how they're going to feel about that.

06:30 Brian Sozzi

This is a you don't want to see I think Elon trying to lead this business also. So far be it for me to tell Elon what he needs and maybe he has a person in mind.

06:46 Speaker A

You don't want him to tell you to shut up.

06:49 Brian Sozzi

like Dan Ives, right? I actually wouldn't mind. It's fine, whatever. It just rolls off my back. But but at the end of the day, you know, I think it's clear he needs some form of product person. Now Elon views himself as a product person, but he can't be running all these business at the same time. I also found it interesting. I asked Linda at the time, is X profitable? She didn't say X was profitable, because I was trying to get the sense at some point, do they bring X back to public markets to drive the value or more value out of the business, unclear to me.

07:33 Speaker A

Yeah, it doesn't seem like there's been many murmurings of that. Interesting. Thank you so much.

07:43 Brian Sozzi

Interesting.