Former NBCU ad exec Linda Yaccarino\u2019s tenure at X<\/a> may have been fairly short \u2014 just two years from start to finish \u2014 but she did manage to make an impact on the social network\u2019s ad business, new data from ad intelligence firm Guideline<\/a> shows. Yaccarino will be leaving X in a better position with its advertisers than she found it, it says.<\/p>\n In the U.S., ad spending was up 62% year-over-year in the first half of 2025, Guideline notes. In addition, Yaccarino previously claimed<\/a> that 96% of X\u2019s advertisers returned to X as of May 2025.<\/p>\n However, it took time for X\u2019s advertising business to turn around, and it remains a turbulent business<\/a>.<\/p>\n Yaccarino\u2019s departure could have a significant impact on X\u2019s profitability, as the company is nowhere near ready to rely entirely on other revenue streams. Its X Premium subscriptions<\/a>, for example, only account for a small portion of its business, and it hasn\u2019t yet launched<\/a> its broader ambitions around an X Money payments service<\/a>.<\/p>\n Yaccarino first joined X in June 2023<\/a> after spending nearly 12 years at NBCUniversal, where she had been chairman of global advertising and partnerships. At the time, X (then called Twitter) was facing a critical advertising downturn. <\/p>\n Many of the initial cuts to ad spend were prompted by Elon Musk\u2019s takeover of the network in October 2022. With cuts<\/a> to Twitter staff, including<\/a> its Trust and Safety division<\/a>, misinformation and hate speech proliferated \u2014 which advertisers<\/a> wanted nothing<\/a> to do with<\/a>. Reuters noted that 14 of the 30 top advertisers stopped all their advertising on the platform<\/a>, and four advertisers had reduced their spending from 92% to 98.7% around that time.<\/p>\n Guideline\u2019s data found that 89% of Twitter\/X\u2019s U.S. ad dollars were eroded in the two years between Q3 2022 and Q3 2024. (These declines had actually begun in Q2 2022, after it was revealed that Musk bought a 9.4% stake in the company, the firm told TechCrunch via email.)<\/p>\n By early 2023, reports surfaced <\/a>that more than 500 of Twitter\u2019s advertisers had left the platform, and fourth-quarter revenues dropped by 35%.<\/p>\n Citing internal documents, The New York Times reported that the social network\u2019s U.S. ad business was down 59% from a year earlier<\/a>, from the five weeks between April 1 and the first week of May 2023, reaching $88 million. Its weekly sales projections were also down by as much as 30%. X then tried luring advertisers back with ad credits<\/a>.<\/p>\n There were hints that Yaccarino was working behind the scenes to repair things, though. <\/p>\n A year after she joined X, the Times reported that 65% of advertisers had returned<\/a>, citing recordings of internal meetings at the company. In August 2023, Yaccarino claimed that<\/a> X\u2019s operational run rate was close to \u201cbreak even.\u201d<\/p>\n But the situation worsened again that year with an advertiser boycott. <\/p>\n In November 2023,\u00a0brands, including Apple, Disney, and IBM, paused their ad spending on X<\/a>\u00a0in the wake of Musk\u2019s endorsement of an antisemitic post. The social network was already on track for a nearly 55% year-over-year decline in worldwide ad spending, according to eMarketer estimates, and this boycott threatened to worsen the situation further.<\/p>\n Musk had also been a challenge for Yaccarino during her time with the company. The X owner and SpaceX exec famously told X advertisers leaving<\/a> to \u201cgo f\u2014 yourself,\u201d calling their departure a form of blackmail. When cursing at them didn\u2019t work, X sued instead<\/a>, saying theirs was an \u201cillegal boycott.\u201d (The suit was expanded<\/a> in early 2025 to include more advertisers, such as LEGO and Shell.)<\/p>\n The threat of litigation worked \u2014 companies, including Verizon and Ralph Lauren, resumed advertising on the platform after receiving legal threats<\/a>, The Wall Street Journal reported in June 2025. The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) also suspended the operations<\/a> of its Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) nonprofit after the lawsuit was filed against it.<\/p>\n Guideline\u2019s data also indicates that X has seen increased U.S. ad spend since December 2024 \u2014 the first time since Musk bought the company, it says. From Q3 2024 to Q4 2024, spending was up 37.7%, influenced by the U.S. presidential elections.<\/p>\n During Yaccarino\u2019s time, X also made moves to ensure more brand safety, partnering with adtech companies<\/a> DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science (IAS) to warn them if ads were placed around inappropriate content. It also offered brands tools to adjust the sensitivity <\/a>of where their ads were displayed on the app, where more \u201crelaxed\u201d ad slots would cost less, and those with higher safety concerns would pay more. Later, X introduced ways for advertisers to run their ads next to a curated set of content creators.<\/a> <\/p>\n None of this has stopped X from being a controversial platform with regard to ad safety. <\/p>\n This week, for instance, the site\u2019s AI bot Grok went off the rails<\/a> after experiencing antisemitic outbursts requiring X to take it offline<\/a>. Now, instead of facing another ad crisis, Yaccarino is leaving \u2014 although her decision was reportedly made prior to the Grok incident<\/a>, according to The New York Times.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"Image](\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/linda-yaccarino-twitter-ceo.jpg?w=680\")