Is this it for 'X' (the app formerly known as Twitter)?
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awhyley
Well-Known Member
Twitter has a new CEO yall, and it's a woman. Turning point, maybe?
Linda Yaccarino, NBCUniversal’s advertising chief, was preparing to interview Elon Musk, Twitter’s owner, onstage at a conference last month when she received an email from a peer in the advertising industry. Rob Norman, a former executive at the ad giant WPP, wanted to know if Ms. Yaccarino had seen the op-ed he wrote after Mr. Musk bought Twitter last year. Mr. Norman’s column discussed the tech billionaire’s amplification of misinformation on Twitter and its chilling effect on advertisers.
Ms. Yaccarino said that she had and that she planned to raise such concerns, Mr. Norman said. But the main focus of her talk with Mr. Musk would be on something else: His efforts to revamp the social network into “Twitter 2.0.” Now Ms. Yaccarino is set to become the face of Twitter 2.0. Mr. Musk said on Friday that he had selected Ms. Yaccarino, 60, to become the company’s chief executive. Hours earlier, NBCUniversal announced that Ms. Yaccarino was leaving, effective immediately.
“I am excited to welcome Linda Yaccarino as the new C.E.O. of Twitter,” Mr. Musk tweeted. He said she would mainly handle business operations while he would continue working on product design and technology.
In choosing Ms. Yaccarino, Mr. Musk is signaling what his priority is at Twitter: its advertising business, rather than social media know-how. Ms. Yaccarino has been one of Madison Avenue’s power brokers for decades. And Twitter, which makes the bulk of its revenue from ads, has struggled to expand that business, especially after Mr. Musk spooked advertisers last year.
“Linda’s a force,” said Joe Marchese, the former head of ad sales at the Fox Networks Group, who has known Ms. Yaccarino for at least a decade.
“She has one of the biggest jobs in advertising, and the ad market is as hard as it’s ever been.” Yet Ms. Yaccarino will have to do more than contend with Twitter’s advertising woes. The company, which is based in San Francisco, has been severely slimmed down since Mr. Musk slashed 75 percent of its work force and has grappled with gaps in expertise and technical glitches. Twitter is also weighed down by $13 billion in debt that it took on to enable Mr. Musk to buy the company.
Most significantly, Ms. Yaccarino would have to deal with a mercurial and unpredictable boss in Mr. Musk. The 51-year-old billionaire has a track record of firing executives who don’t achieve his goals. He sometimes tweets news about his various companies, which also include the electric carmaker Tesla, without warning. And as Twitter’s owner, Mr. Musk retains absolute power at the company.
Lou Paskalis, a longtime ad executive and friend of Ms. Yaccarino, likened her move to Twitter to taking a “step into the lion’s mouth.”
“With her stature in the industry as probably one of the most beloved and trusted people on the revenue side, I question why she would subject herself to that kind of potential reputational risk,” he said.
Mr. Musk and Ms. Yaccarino may be betting that there is plenty of upside with Twitter 2.0. Mr. Musk has laid out ambitious plans for the company, telling employees that it could be worth $250 billion one day and that the platform can be an “everything app,” with features like payments. (He recently said that Twitter is worth $20 billion, down from the $44 billion he paid for it.)
Ms. Yaccarino has already been working on her priorities at Twitter. One person who has spoken with her in recent days said that she is focused on repairing the company’s relationship with Madison Avenue and wooing media companies back to the platform, potentially with partnership deals.
And she and Mr. Musk appear aligned on political issues — such as a more permissive approach toward speech on Twitter — that are central to his vision for the platform, two people familiar with her views said. She is a conservative and a critic of so-called woke discourse, a term used by conservatives to describe elements of left-wing social progressivism they view as censorious, they said.
Image
Ms. Yaccarino has previously said of Mr. Musk that she did not plan to “bet against him” and that she believed he could “learn advertising.”Credit...Tawni Bannister for The New York Times
Former President Donald J. Trump twice appointed Ms. Yaccarino to two-year terms on the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition, where she joined would-be Republican politicians such as Mehmet Oz, the celebrity physician.
Ms. Yaccarino, who did not return requests for comment, grew up with working-class Italian parents in Long Island, New York, including a father who was a police officer. She attended Catholic school. After graduating from Pennsylvania State University in 1985 with a telecommunications degree, she spent nearly 20 years at Turner Entertainment, becoming chief operating officer of advertising sales, marketing and acquisitions before leaving for NBCUniversal in 2011.
At Turner and NBCUniversal, Ms. Yaccarino — who has been said to negotiate like a “velvet hammer” — made a name for herself by helping traditional television hold its ground in advertising in the era of Facebook and Google. Each year, she strode onstage at Radio City Music Hall for the upfront presentations, the glitzy showcases used by television networks to woo Madison Avenue, to persuade marketers to pay a hefty premium over social media rates to advertise on shows like “This Is Us” and “Saturday Night Live.”
But while Ms. Yaccarino has spent years defending TV ad dollars from tech companies and been a fierce critic of Facebook and YouTube, she has also struck partnerships with apps like Snapchat and TikTok and digital outlets like BuzzFeed.
Outside work, Ms. Yaccarino became involved in initiatives including the World Economic Forum’s Taskforce on Future of Work, which she heads. She was also a chair on the board of the Ad Council, a nonprofit, and helped the group raise $60 million in three months early in the pandemic to help counter vaccine hesitancy, making private calls, sending notes and “working every lever that she had,” said Lisa Sherman, the council’s chief executive.
Ms. Yaccarino reached out to Mr. Musk around the time of the Super Bowl in February to discuss a partnership with NBCUniversal and potentially joining Twitter as chief executive, three people familiar with their talks said.
She had previously expressed admiration for Twitter, calling the platform “the single, No. 1 biggest” content distribution partner for NBCUniversal at an ad industry event soon after Mr. Musk took over the company. At the time, she added that she did not plan to “bet against him” and that she believed he could “learn advertising.”
“I think we can teach him,” she said.
This week, Ms. Yaccarino was in attendance when Mr. Musk spoke at an advertising conference in California’s Napa Valley hosted by WPP, three people familiar with the event said. Ms. Yaccarino would be a rare female chief executive in technology, as top executives like Meta’s Sheryl Sandberg and YouTube’s Susan Wojcicki have recently left their roles. Throughout her career, Ms. Yaccarino has often said that she has been the only woman at the table and has described incidents of bias, such as the time a male supervisor complained in an otherwise flattering performance review about her aggressiveness: “I only wish she would stop using her high heels as a weapon.”
While Ms. Yaccarino is active on Twitter, her habits are sedate compared to Mr. Musk’s, though in recent weeks, she has liked dozens of posts by and about him. Still, the differences between Mr. Musk and Ms. Yaccarino were clear last month at the media conference in Miami. A polished Ms. Yaccarino came with prepared comments. An unshaven Mr. Musk spent a few moments wrangling his toddler son, X Æ A-12, before joining her and offering sometimes halting answers to her questions.
Ms. Yaccarino returned repeatedly to worries that her industry colleagues have voiced since Mr. Musk took control of Twitter, emphasizing several times that the audience of ad executives was crucial to the company’s financial success.
Mr. Musk said that “there’s legitimate concerns that advertisers have that I want to hear.” He recounted a complaint he had heard from David Zaslav, the chief executive of Warner Bros. Discovery, who was frustrated that he was unable to place ads for “White Lotus,” the hit HBO show, next to discussions of “White Lotus” on Twitter.
The issue has since been fixed, Mr. Musk said.
Ms. Yaccarino answered: “So it’s a new beginning.”
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/12/technology/yaccarino-twitter-ceo-musk.html
Linda Yaccarino, NBCUniversal’s advertising chief, was preparing to interview Elon Musk, Twitter’s owner, onstage at a conference last month when she received an email from a peer in the advertising industry. Rob Norman, a former executive at the ad giant WPP, wanted to know if Ms. Yaccarino had seen the op-ed he wrote after Mr. Musk bought Twitter last year. Mr. Norman’s column discussed the tech billionaire’s amplification of misinformation on Twitter and its chilling effect on advertisers.
Ms. Yaccarino said that she had and that she planned to raise such concerns, Mr. Norman said. But the main focus of her talk with Mr. Musk would be on something else: His efforts to revamp the social network into “Twitter 2.0.” Now Ms. Yaccarino is set to become the face of Twitter 2.0. Mr. Musk said on Friday that he had selected Ms. Yaccarino, 60, to become the company’s chief executive. Hours earlier, NBCUniversal announced that Ms. Yaccarino was leaving, effective immediately.
“I am excited to welcome Linda Yaccarino as the new C.E.O. of Twitter,” Mr. Musk tweeted. He said she would mainly handle business operations while he would continue working on product design and technology.
In choosing Ms. Yaccarino, Mr. Musk is signaling what his priority is at Twitter: its advertising business, rather than social media know-how. Ms. Yaccarino has been one of Madison Avenue’s power brokers for decades. And Twitter, which makes the bulk of its revenue from ads, has struggled to expand that business, especially after Mr. Musk spooked advertisers last year.
“Linda’s a force,” said Joe Marchese, the former head of ad sales at the Fox Networks Group, who has known Ms. Yaccarino for at least a decade.
“She has one of the biggest jobs in advertising, and the ad market is as hard as it’s ever been.” Yet Ms. Yaccarino will have to do more than contend with Twitter’s advertising woes. The company, which is based in San Francisco, has been severely slimmed down since Mr. Musk slashed 75 percent of its work force and has grappled with gaps in expertise and technical glitches. Twitter is also weighed down by $13 billion in debt that it took on to enable Mr. Musk to buy the company.
Most significantly, Ms. Yaccarino would have to deal with a mercurial and unpredictable boss in Mr. Musk. The 51-year-old billionaire has a track record of firing executives who don’t achieve his goals. He sometimes tweets news about his various companies, which also include the electric carmaker Tesla, without warning. And as Twitter’s owner, Mr. Musk retains absolute power at the company.
Inside Elon Musk’s Twitter
- Blue Check Marks: Twitter began removing check mark icons from the profiles of thousands of celebrities, politicians and journalists, in one of the most visible indicators of how Elon Musk is changing the company.
- A Changing Landscape: The elimination of the check marks, which historically served as a means of identifying public agencies, has convulsed Twitter as information on the platform becomes increasingly unreliable.
- ‘Government-Funded’ Labels: Twitter has removed labels that described prominent news organizations as “government-funded” or “state-affiliated” after NPR and public broadcasters in several countries criticized the labels as misleading and suspended the use of their accounts.
Lou Paskalis, a longtime ad executive and friend of Ms. Yaccarino, likened her move to Twitter to taking a “step into the lion’s mouth.”
“With her stature in the industry as probably one of the most beloved and trusted people on the revenue side, I question why she would subject herself to that kind of potential reputational risk,” he said.
Mr. Musk and Ms. Yaccarino may be betting that there is plenty of upside with Twitter 2.0. Mr. Musk has laid out ambitious plans for the company, telling employees that it could be worth $250 billion one day and that the platform can be an “everything app,” with features like payments. (He recently said that Twitter is worth $20 billion, down from the $44 billion he paid for it.)
Ms. Yaccarino has already been working on her priorities at Twitter. One person who has spoken with her in recent days said that she is focused on repairing the company’s relationship with Madison Avenue and wooing media companies back to the platform, potentially with partnership deals.
And she and Mr. Musk appear aligned on political issues — such as a more permissive approach toward speech on Twitter — that are central to his vision for the platform, two people familiar with her views said. She is a conservative and a critic of so-called woke discourse, a term used by conservatives to describe elements of left-wing social progressivism they view as censorious, they said.
Image
Ms. Yaccarino has previously said of Mr. Musk that she did not plan to “bet against him” and that she believed he could “learn advertising.”Credit...Tawni Bannister for The New York Times
Former President Donald J. Trump twice appointed Ms. Yaccarino to two-year terms on the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition, where she joined would-be Republican politicians such as Mehmet Oz, the celebrity physician.
Ms. Yaccarino, who did not return requests for comment, grew up with working-class Italian parents in Long Island, New York, including a father who was a police officer. She attended Catholic school. After graduating from Pennsylvania State University in 1985 with a telecommunications degree, she spent nearly 20 years at Turner Entertainment, becoming chief operating officer of advertising sales, marketing and acquisitions before leaving for NBCUniversal in 2011.
At Turner and NBCUniversal, Ms. Yaccarino — who has been said to negotiate like a “velvet hammer” — made a name for herself by helping traditional television hold its ground in advertising in the era of Facebook and Google. Each year, she strode onstage at Radio City Music Hall for the upfront presentations, the glitzy showcases used by television networks to woo Madison Avenue, to persuade marketers to pay a hefty premium over social media rates to advertise on shows like “This Is Us” and “Saturday Night Live.”
But while Ms. Yaccarino has spent years defending TV ad dollars from tech companies and been a fierce critic of Facebook and YouTube, she has also struck partnerships with apps like Snapchat and TikTok and digital outlets like BuzzFeed.
Outside work, Ms. Yaccarino became involved in initiatives including the World Economic Forum’s Taskforce on Future of Work, which she heads. She was also a chair on the board of the Ad Council, a nonprofit, and helped the group raise $60 million in three months early in the pandemic to help counter vaccine hesitancy, making private calls, sending notes and “working every lever that she had,” said Lisa Sherman, the council’s chief executive.
Ms. Yaccarino reached out to Mr. Musk around the time of the Super Bowl in February to discuss a partnership with NBCUniversal and potentially joining Twitter as chief executive, three people familiar with their talks said.
She had previously expressed admiration for Twitter, calling the platform “the single, No. 1 biggest” content distribution partner for NBCUniversal at an ad industry event soon after Mr. Musk took over the company. At the time, she added that she did not plan to “bet against him” and that she believed he could “learn advertising.”
“I think we can teach him,” she said.
This week, Ms. Yaccarino was in attendance when Mr. Musk spoke at an advertising conference in California’s Napa Valley hosted by WPP, three people familiar with the event said. Ms. Yaccarino would be a rare female chief executive in technology, as top executives like Meta’s Sheryl Sandberg and YouTube’s Susan Wojcicki have recently left their roles. Throughout her career, Ms. Yaccarino has often said that she has been the only woman at the table and has described incidents of bias, such as the time a male supervisor complained in an otherwise flattering performance review about her aggressiveness: “I only wish she would stop using her high heels as a weapon.”
While Ms. Yaccarino is active on Twitter, her habits are sedate compared to Mr. Musk’s, though in recent weeks, she has liked dozens of posts by and about him. Still, the differences between Mr. Musk and Ms. Yaccarino were clear last month at the media conference in Miami. A polished Ms. Yaccarino came with prepared comments. An unshaven Mr. Musk spent a few moments wrangling his toddler son, X Æ A-12, before joining her and offering sometimes halting answers to her questions.
Ms. Yaccarino returned repeatedly to worries that her industry colleagues have voiced since Mr. Musk took control of Twitter, emphasizing several times that the audience of ad executives was crucial to the company’s financial success.
Mr. Musk said that “there’s legitimate concerns that advertisers have that I want to hear.” He recounted a complaint he had heard from David Zaslav, the chief executive of Warner Bros. Discovery, who was frustrated that he was unable to place ads for “White Lotus,” the hit HBO show, next to discussions of “White Lotus” on Twitter.
The issue has since been fixed, Mr. Musk said.
Ms. Yaccarino answered: “So it’s a new beginning.”
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/12/technology/yaccarino-twitter-ceo-musk.html
Black Ambrosia
Well-Known Member
My opinion of Musk is so unfavorable that I don't see any good in most of his decisions. Will she have the autonomy to really lead? Will she pay Twitter's bills? Will he fire her like he's fired so many others? He's tainted twitter.
spacetygrss
Well-Known Member
I don’t know…..this could be a glass cliff situation. Good luck to her.
awhyley
Well-Known Member
Is this how presidential bids kick off now . . . on Twitter?
May 23, 2023, 2:00 PM EDT / Updated May 23, 2023, 3:27 PM EDT
By Dasha Burns and Matt Dixon
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will announce he is running for president during a discussion with Twitter CEO Elon Musk, three sources familiar with the plans told NBC News. Musk and DeSantis will host an event on Twitter Spaces, the site’s platform for audio chats, on Wednesday at 6 p.m. ET. It will be moderated by David Sacks, a tech entrepreneur who is a Musk confidant and DeSantis supporter.
That same evening, the campaign will release a launch video, and DeSantis will begin visiting several early states after Memorial Day.
The relationship could be a significant boost for DeSantis by giving him an introduction to, and credibility with, Musk’s massive following — including his 140 million Twitter followers. But it could prove a burden should DeSantis become distracted by the tycoon’s many controversial comments.
The launch will closely tie together the billionaire tech mogul with one of the Republican Party’s rising stars. Musk has been an admirer of DeSantis, who also regularly chides corporate media. Last year, Musk said he would support the governor if he were to run for president.
The announcement will coincide with a retreat for high-end fundraisers pledged to support DeSantis in Miami. Bundlers will gather at the Four Seasons hotel from May 24-26, receiving briefings from campaign staff, combined with time to call around to raise money for the campaign.
The DeSantis team has been in talks with Musk for at least the last few weeks, according to a source familiar with the discussions. In those conversations, the source said, Musk has indicated he doesn’t think former President Donald Trump can win back the White House.
“He’s interested in the future, and he’s interested in winning again,” the person said.
During the Wall Street Journal’s 2023 CEO Summit Council on Tuesday, Musk confirmed his participation in DeSantis' announcement but said he was not going to be formally endorsing DeSantis at that time.
“I think it’s quite groundbreaking that there be a major announcement of this type on social media,” he said, adding that he was “not going to endorse any particular candidate” for president quite yet.
A source said, however, that within DeSantis’ team, Musk's participation is viewed as a clear sign of support for the governor.
Yet Musk is nothing if not unpredictable, and on Friday, he tweeted praise of an ad by Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., one of DeSantis’ rivals for the GOP nomination. NBC News did not receive a response for comment from Musk, Sacks or the DeSantis campaign for this piece.
Even if Musk stops short of a full endorsement of DeSantis, aligning with his presidential announcement puts him and the company more squarely into a presidential election than any other tech company before it. Twitter, Facebook and others have launched election hubs and voter registration efforts, but have kept candidates at arm’s length.
And someone of Musk’s stature participating in DeSantis’ presidential launch dents the inevitability and power of Trump.
DeSantis’ relationship with Musk goes back to early 2021, when the two met at a dinner party in Austin, Texas, with roughly 15 people including tech investors, developers and health care industry officials, according to a GOP fundraiser who was at the meeting.
The two also have a relationship through Sacks, a major Republican donor who has been openly supportive of DeSantis and is considered to be part of Musk’s inner circle on decisions about Twitter.
Musk has carved out an intense following after he purchased Twitter with the promise to return “free speech” after years of complaints from the right that the site had tried to censor conservatives. Among his first steps was reinstating the accounts of previous far-right Twitter users who had been suspended for spreading disinformation. Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who remains one of the most popular figures in conservative media even after being fired by Fox News, is launching a new show on Twitter.
That seems to be part of what makes partnering with Musk attractive to DeSantis. One of the sources familiar with the plans told NBC News that DeSantis’ aides have been watching Twitter become an increasingly friendly space for conservative firebrands under Musk’s leadership, allowing them to speak directly to their conservative audience and bypass traditional media — something that was once Trump’s superpower.
Trump was banned from Twitter after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection by his supporters at the Capitol, and he has yet to return to the site even after Musk reinstated him last fall.
"I expect the campaign will be painting a positive vision for the country, and the entire rollout will highlight future vs. past, success vs. failure, winning vs. losing and action vs. talk. That is the frame of the race," a source familiar with the plan said.
“Announcing on Twitter is perfect for Ron DeSantis,” a Trump adviser told NBC News in a text message. “This way he doesn’t have to interact with people and the media can’t ask him any questions.”
The plan is not without its risks. Musk’s international star power could serve to outshine DeSantis, who — while a heavyweight in Republican political circles — is not nearly as well known. And DeSantis may not want to have to answer for all of Musk’s positions — potentially down to individual tweets — such as his comments about progressive megadonor George Soros that have earned the ire of Jewish leaders.
A source familiar with the plans said the DeSantis team wasn’t worried about being upstaged, arguing that the governor is fine not having the spotlight solely on himself.
But an additional risk for DeSantis is that while Musk has tons of muscle available to put behind DeSantis — and has fans in the former president’s base — Trump has made a political career out of portraying himself as an underdog fighting powerful forces within his party, on the Democratic side of the aisle, and in government and industry. Musk — and by extension, DeSantis — could be framed as just the latest corporate titan to align against Trump’s movement.
In the coming weeks, Musk will be stepping down as Twitter’s CEO. He recently announced that he had hired Linda Yaccarino, the former head of ad sales for NBCUniversal, to take over as the next CEO of Twitter. Musk said he would still oversee product design and new technology, while Yaccarino would run the business side.
Link: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/20...presidential-bid-campaign-elon-musk-rcna85288
Ron DeSantis will launch his presidential bid with Elon Musk
The Florida governor will announce he is running for president on Twitter Wednesday evening in a conversation with Musk.May 23, 2023, 2:00 PM EDT / Updated May 23, 2023, 3:27 PM EDT
By Dasha Burns and Matt Dixon
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will announce he is running for president during a discussion with Twitter CEO Elon Musk, three sources familiar with the plans told NBC News. Musk and DeSantis will host an event on Twitter Spaces, the site’s platform for audio chats, on Wednesday at 6 p.m. ET. It will be moderated by David Sacks, a tech entrepreneur who is a Musk confidant and DeSantis supporter.
That same evening, the campaign will release a launch video, and DeSantis will begin visiting several early states after Memorial Day.
The relationship could be a significant boost for DeSantis by giving him an introduction to, and credibility with, Musk’s massive following — including his 140 million Twitter followers. But it could prove a burden should DeSantis become distracted by the tycoon’s many controversial comments.
The launch will closely tie together the billionaire tech mogul with one of the Republican Party’s rising stars. Musk has been an admirer of DeSantis, who also regularly chides corporate media. Last year, Musk said he would support the governor if he were to run for president.
The announcement will coincide with a retreat for high-end fundraisers pledged to support DeSantis in Miami. Bundlers will gather at the Four Seasons hotel from May 24-26, receiving briefings from campaign staff, combined with time to call around to raise money for the campaign.
The DeSantis team has been in talks with Musk for at least the last few weeks, according to a source familiar with the discussions. In those conversations, the source said, Musk has indicated he doesn’t think former President Donald Trump can win back the White House.
“He’s interested in the future, and he’s interested in winning again,” the person said.
During the Wall Street Journal’s 2023 CEO Summit Council on Tuesday, Musk confirmed his participation in DeSantis' announcement but said he was not going to be formally endorsing DeSantis at that time.
“I think it’s quite groundbreaking that there be a major announcement of this type on social media,” he said, adding that he was “not going to endorse any particular candidate” for president quite yet.
A source said, however, that within DeSantis’ team, Musk's participation is viewed as a clear sign of support for the governor.
Yet Musk is nothing if not unpredictable, and on Friday, he tweeted praise of an ad by Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., one of DeSantis’ rivals for the GOP nomination. NBC News did not receive a response for comment from Musk, Sacks or the DeSantis campaign for this piece.
Even if Musk stops short of a full endorsement of DeSantis, aligning with his presidential announcement puts him and the company more squarely into a presidential election than any other tech company before it. Twitter, Facebook and others have launched election hubs and voter registration efforts, but have kept candidates at arm’s length.
And someone of Musk’s stature participating in DeSantis’ presidential launch dents the inevitability and power of Trump.
DeSantis’ relationship with Musk goes back to early 2021, when the two met at a dinner party in Austin, Texas, with roughly 15 people including tech investors, developers and health care industry officials, according to a GOP fundraiser who was at the meeting.
The two also have a relationship through Sacks, a major Republican donor who has been openly supportive of DeSantis and is considered to be part of Musk’s inner circle on decisions about Twitter.
Musk has carved out an intense following after he purchased Twitter with the promise to return “free speech” after years of complaints from the right that the site had tried to censor conservatives. Among his first steps was reinstating the accounts of previous far-right Twitter users who had been suspended for spreading disinformation. Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who remains one of the most popular figures in conservative media even after being fired by Fox News, is launching a new show on Twitter.
That seems to be part of what makes partnering with Musk attractive to DeSantis. One of the sources familiar with the plans told NBC News that DeSantis’ aides have been watching Twitter become an increasingly friendly space for conservative firebrands under Musk’s leadership, allowing them to speak directly to their conservative audience and bypass traditional media — something that was once Trump’s superpower.
Trump was banned from Twitter after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection by his supporters at the Capitol, and he has yet to return to the site even after Musk reinstated him last fall.
"I expect the campaign will be painting a positive vision for the country, and the entire rollout will highlight future vs. past, success vs. failure, winning vs. losing and action vs. talk. That is the frame of the race," a source familiar with the plan said.
“Announcing on Twitter is perfect for Ron DeSantis,” a Trump adviser told NBC News in a text message. “This way he doesn’t have to interact with people and the media can’t ask him any questions.”
The plan is not without its risks. Musk’s international star power could serve to outshine DeSantis, who — while a heavyweight in Republican political circles — is not nearly as well known. And DeSantis may not want to have to answer for all of Musk’s positions — potentially down to individual tweets — such as his comments about progressive megadonor George Soros that have earned the ire of Jewish leaders.
A source familiar with the plans said the DeSantis team wasn’t worried about being upstaged, arguing that the governor is fine not having the spotlight solely on himself.
But an additional risk for DeSantis is that while Musk has tons of muscle available to put behind DeSantis — and has fans in the former president’s base — Trump has made a political career out of portraying himself as an underdog fighting powerful forces within his party, on the Democratic side of the aisle, and in government and industry. Musk — and by extension, DeSantis — could be framed as just the latest corporate titan to align against Trump’s movement.
In the coming weeks, Musk will be stepping down as Twitter’s CEO. He recently announced that he had hired Linda Yaccarino, the former head of ad sales for NBCUniversal, to take over as the next CEO of Twitter. Musk said he would still oversee product design and new technology, while Yaccarino would run the business side.
Link: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/20...presidential-bid-campaign-elon-musk-rcna85288
Black Ambrosia
Well-Known Member
Evolving78
Well-Known Member
No lie! I thought that was T. Howard before I kept scrolling! Lol
awhyley
Well-Known Member
First punch about to be thrown.
Twitter threatens legal action over Threads app
- Published
16 minutes ago
- Published
BBC News, Washington DC
Twitter is considering legal action against Meta over its fast-growing rival app Threads.
Threads, which was launched to millions on Wednesday, is similar to Twitter and has been pitched by Meta bosses as a "friendly" alternative.
Twitter's Elon Musk said "competition is fine, cheating is not" - but Meta denied claims in a legal letter that ex-Twitter staff helped create Threads. More than 30 million people have signed up for the new app, according to Meta.
The look and feel of Threads is similar to Twitter, BBC News technology reporter James Clayton noted. He said the news feed and the reposting were incredibly familiar. In a move first reported by news outlet Semafor, Twitter attorney Alex Spiro sent a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday accusing Meta of "systematic, wilful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter's trade secrets and other intellectual property" to create Threads.
Specifically, Mr Spiro alleged that Meta hired dozens of former Twitter employees who "had and continue to have access to Twitter's trade secrets and other highly confidential information" that ultimately helped Meta develop what he termed the "copycat" Threads app.
"Twitter intends to strictly enforce its intellectual property rights, and demands that Meta take immediate steps to stop using any Twitter trade secrets or other highly confidential information," the letter says.
"Twitter reserves all rights, including, but not limited to, the right to seek both civil remedies and injunctive relief without further notice."
BBC News, which has seen a copy of the letter, has contacted both Meta and Twitter for comment.
Mr Musk said that "competition is fine, cheating is not" in response to a post on Twitter that referred to the legal letter.
On Threads, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone posted that "no one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee - that's just not a thing".
Both Mr Musk and Mr Zuckerberg have acknowledged the rivalry over Threads, which is linked to Instagram but works as a standalone app.
As it launched in 100 countries, Mr Zuckerberg broke more than 11 years of silence on Twitter to post a highly popular meme of two nearly identical Spider-Man figures pointing at each other, indicating a stand-off.
Shortly after, and as the word "Threads" trended globally on his platform, Mr Musk said: "It is infinitely preferable to be attacked by strangers on Twitter, than indulge in the false happiness of hide-the-pain Instagram."
Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino said in a tweet on Thursday that while the platform, which has previously reported about 260 million monthly users, is "often imitated" it "can never be duplicated".
Both Meta and Twitter have undertaken significant layoffs this year, with Meta announcing in April that it would cut staff levels by approximately 10,000.
Twitter lost a large proportion of its 7,500 employees, as high as 80%, in waves of redundancies following Mr Musk's takeover last October.
Link: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66129215
Black Ambrosia
Well-Known Member
PatDM'T
Well-Known Member
Black Ambrosia
Well-Known Member
awhyley
Well-Known Member
Elon Musk reveals the new Twitter logo X
Minimalist art deco ‘X’ billed as part of social media platform’s rebrandDan Milmo Global technology editor
Mon 24 Jul 2023 12.02 BST
Elon Musk has revealed a new logo for Twitter, choosing a “minimalist art deco” X as part of a rebrand of the platform.
The Twitter owner indicated the design would be altered, tweeting that it “probably changes later, certainly will be refined”. Twitter’s CEO, Linda Yaccarino, confirmed the choice on Monday by tweeting the design and writing: “X is here! Let’s do this.”
Musk had appealed to his 149 million followers for design ideas and appears to have chosen a logo that he had flagged on Sunday via a flickering video pinned to the top of his Twitter feed.
The “X” logo has long been an obsession of Musk’s and is his name for an “everything app” that he has pledged to launch at some point – with Twitter the likely vehicle. Shortly before buying Twitter in October, Musk described the social media platform as “an accelerant to creating X, the everything app”.
After taking over Twitter in October last year, Musk folded the company into an entity called X Corp, whose parent is X Holdings Corp. This month, the Tesla CEO announced he was forming a new artificial intelligence company called xAI.
The crowd-sourced logo had been posted by Twitter user Sawyer Merritt, co-founder of a sustainable clothing business, who tweeted that the font had been used for a discontinued podcast, although it also bears similarity with a font used by Indian dance music artist Kxlider.
The X concept is modelled on WeChat, the Chinese app that allows users to perform multiple functions from messaging to ordering a taxi and paying bills. In June last year, Musk reportedly told Twitter staff: “You basically live on WeChat in China. If we can recreate that with Twitter, we’ll be a great success.”
Yaccarino gave some details on Sunday of how she expected X to work, tweeting that the business would be AI-powered and “centred in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking”. As of Monday morning the Twitter’s desktop version was carrying the new logo in place of its signature bird symbol and the official Twitter account had been changed to the X brand.
One analyst warned that the rebranding move was high-risk given the competitive outlook for Twitter, which is suffering financially from advertisers withholding spending and the emergence of a “Twitter killer” rival called Threads, launched by Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta.
“By changing Twitter’s app name, Elon Musk will have singlehandedly wiped out over 15 years of a brand name that has secured its place in our cultural lexicon,” said Mike Proulx, research director at the analysis firm Forrester.
“This is an extremely risky move because with ‘X’, Musk is essentially starting over while its competition is afoot.”
Link: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jul/24/elon-musk-reveals-the-new-twitter-logo-x
Bye-bye bluebird
Everything Zen
Well-Known Member
He’s such a stupid 
Peppermynt
Defying Gravity
Just a few right angles away from a swastica. Is anyone actually surprised?
Black Ambrosia
Well-Known Member
I hope this question isn’t offensive but are people on the spectrum drawn to minimalism or symbolism? He’s already got Space X and a Tesla model x. ‘X’ hasn’t been trendy or edgy or even interesting in at least 10 years. There’s nothing so riveting about the letter for him to insist on using it across multiple businesses. It’s like he thinks in such a linear way that anything that looks like coloring outside the lines bothers him.
Black Ambrosia
Well-Known Member
PatDM'T
Well-Known Member
Evolving78
Well-Known Member
That’s megalomaniac type of stuff going on. Not hyper fixation.
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