According to new chief Linda Yaccarino, the company is close to breaking even as a whole. The re-brand to X has also proven popular among the platform's users, internal insights show.

Yaccarino noted this in a new interview with CNBC, where the newly minted X chief was grilled on the autonomy of her role under X owner Elon Musk, her plans for rejuvenating the platform's ad business, and her further vision for the app.

And while much of what Yaccarino had to say seemed pretty much exactly what you might expect from someone who is trying to pitch a platform as a major consideration for advertisers, Yaccarino did have some interesting things to say about their progress and what might come next.

The thrust of the interview was, of course, on the re-brand and how that is playing out in business.

Yaccarino seems confident in the new direction, explaining that X encompasses more opportunities than the previous moniker.

As per Yaccarino:

"The rebrand really represented a freedom from Twitter, a freedom that enabled us to evolve beyond a legacy mindset and thinking, and to reimagine how everyone, how everybody on Spaces who's listening, everybody watching around the world, it's going to change how we congregate, how we entertain, how we transact all in one platform."

That's pretty much in line with the bombastic description Yaccarino recently shared to X about the new vision for the app, which had many rolling their eyes at corporate-speak.
I mean, Yaccarino is the head of the company, and a media messaging expert, so this, really, is what you might expect. But there's a vagueness to these terms, all of which sound good when spoken, but are fairly hollow in substance.

Anyway, Yaccarino was keen to highlight the evolution of the app, and the new opportunities:

"Experiences and evolution into long-form video and articles, subscribe to your favorite creators, who are now earning a real living on the platform. You look at video, and soon you'll be able to make video chat calls without having to give your phone number to anyone on the platform."

All of these, Yaccarino says, form the basis of what X is all about, in differentiation to Twitter, though most are pretty much in line with the previous Twitter experience, and were even enacted, in some form, under previous Twitter management.

So as yet, it's not some huge change of direction. But it is early, especially for Yaccarino herself, who only took the job three months ago, after more than a decade working for NBCUniversal.
It has been especially keen to tout the benefits of its platform as a creator monetization pathway, and its new ad revenue share offering was still seeing top creators in the app earn huge paychecks for their efforts.
That's a far cry from the old Twitter, though the barriers to entry for the program remain extremely high, so while it may feel like nearly everyone is sharing their earnings, it's still just a miniscule percentage of X creators who are earning anything so far.

It also remains to be seen whether this is a sustainable system for the company, but right now, Yaccarino's keen to highlight this as part of the broader X vision.

His questions also included details about how the ad business of the company is responding and whether brand partners are buying into the re-brand. According to Yaccarino, three out of four X users feel positive about the new name, and there are now more advertisers coming back than ever before, reflecting its constantly evolving and improving vision with time.

As Yaccarino says, the platform is far safer than it was a year ago-and 99.99% of all Tweet impressions are going to content that doesn't violate the platform's rules. The specifics here are worth noting, as it's basically impossible that its detection rates are that high, but this stat, based on analysis by Sprinklr, is what X is going with as it looks to regain advertiser trust.

Most advertisers are viewing that through narrowed eyes, but again, Yaccarino claims they are now resuming their spending, bringing the company close to 'break even.'

That's somewhat supported by third-party analysis, though many big-name brands are still holding off on resuming full X spending.

Meanwhile, according to new research from ad tech platform MediaRadar, it seems over a third of the big-name brands that decided to cut their spend in the app since Musk's takeover are still holding off-including AT&T, Disney, and Coca-Cola. Some smaller brands are coming back, though, which is likely where the platform is seeing renewed growth.

That's a good omen, but of course the bigger spenders remain holdouts, though Yaccarino will no doubt be hoping that fresh updates to ad placement controls and third-party verification will help to calm the ad executives' fears about the platform's "Freedom of Speech, Not Freedom of Reach" approach.

And on this front, Yaccarino added another catchphrase to the app's new lexicon:

"If it's lawful but it's awful, it's extraordinarily difficult for you to see it."

"Lawful but awful". That could be X's new tagline. It's better than "Blaze Your Glory".

Yaccarino also said that X is looking to bring back its "client council" to provide input into key ad decisions, while it's also looking to add more controls to help reassure brand partners, and win back more ad spend.
Again, to some extent, these strategies seem to be effective but on-going restraint, triggered largely by the posts of Musk, continues to present an uphill task for Yaccarino as she endeavors to return the business to growth.

However, by and large, the chance still exists for X to be a bigger player in the social media waters, provided it can walk some of its talk, and become more of an all-inclusive media play as well as an empowering creator platform, which also works to include social elements.

Really, it all depends on Elon, who has a record of success and whom business leaders are hesitant to bet against. For anyone else, the plan of X in all its vagueness would be laughable, but there's that inkling that maybe, somehow, Elon will pull it off.

Nobody knows how, and I’m not sure that Musk and Yaccarino do either. But the audience is listening, and waiting to see what comes next.