Former NBCU Advertising executive Linda Yaccarino’s tenure at X may have been rather short – just two years from start to finish, but she was able to influence the social networks’ advertising business. Yaccarino will leave X in a better position with the advertiser than she found, it says.
In the US, AD spending rose 62% year-on-year in the first half of 2025, the guidelines state. Additionally, Yaccarino previously claimed that 96% of X advertisers had returned to X as of May 2025.
However, it takes time for X to turn around and remains a turbulent business.
Yaccarino’s departure can have a major impact on X’s profitability as it is not fully prepared to rely on other revenue streams. For example, its X Premium subscriptions make up only a small portion of its business and have not yet launched broader ambitions regarding X-money payment services.
Yaccarino first joined X in June 2023 after nearly 12 years at NBCuniversal. At the time, X (now called Twitter) was facing a critical ad slump.
Much of the initial cuts in AD spending was spurred by Elon Musk’s acquisition of the network in October 2022. Its trust and safety department, cuts down on Twitter staff to expand misinformation and hate speech – advertisers wanted nothing to do with it. Reuters noted that out of the 30 top advertisers, 14 have stopped all ads on the platform, with four advertisers having reduced spending from 92% to 98.7% at the time.
Guideline data found that 89% of Twitter/X’s US ad dollars had been eroded over two years between the third quarter of 2022 and the third quarter of 2024 (these declines actually began in the second quarter of 2022 after it was revealed that Musk had purchased a 9.4% stake in the company, the company told TechCrunch via email.
By early 2023, reports emerged that over 500 Twitter advertisers left the platform, with fourth quarter revenue falling 35%.
Citing internal documents, the New York Times reported that social networks’ US advertising business had fallen 59% from the five weeks between April 1st and the first week of May 2023, reaching $88 million. Weekly sales forecasts also fell by up to 30%. X lured the advertiser with advertising credits.
However, there were hints that Jaccarino was working behind the scenes to fix things.
A year after she joined X, The Times reported that 65% of advertisers were back, citing recordings of internal meetings at the company. In August 2023, Yaccarino claimed that X’s operational run rate was close to “uniform.”
However, that year, things got worse with a boycott of advertisers.
In November 2023, brands including Apple, Disney and IBM suspended advertising spending on X following support from mask anti-Semitism posts. Social networks are already on track with a fall of nearly 55% year-on-year decline in global ad spending, and the boycott is threatening to make the situation even worse, according to Emarketer’s estimates.
The mask was also a challenge for Jaccarino. The owners of X and SpaceX exec famously tell X advertisers that they are leaving to “go themselves” and call their departure a form of terrifying mail. When cursing them didn’t work, X sues instead, saying they were “illegal boycotts.” (The lawsuit expanded in early 2025, including more advertisers, such as Lego and Shell.)
Companies including Verizon and Ralph Lauren resumed advertising on their platforms after receiving legal threats as the litigation threat worked, the Wall Street Journal reported in June 2025.
Guideline data shows that X saw an increase in US advertising spending since December 2024. It’s the first time since Musk acquired the company. From the third quarter of 2024 to the fourth quarter of 2024, spending rose 37.7%, affected by the US presidential election.
In the Yaccarino era, X moved to ensure more brand safety. We have partnered with AdTechCompanies to warn AdTech Companies and Integral Ad Science (IAS) to warn them if ads are placed on inappropriate content. It also provided branding tools to adjust the sensitivity of where ads are displayed in the app. Here, the cost of more “relaxed” ad slots will be lower, and those with high safety concerns will pay more. X then introduced a way for advertisers to run ads next to a set of curated content creators.
This does not prevent X from being a controversial platform regarding AD safety.
For example, this week, the site’s AI Botglock fell off the rail after experiencing an anti-Semitism explosion that X had to take offline. Instead of facing another advertising crisis, Jaccarino has left, but her decision was reportedly made prior to the GROK incident, according to the New York Times.
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