\n<\/p>\n
In a live chat earlier this month, Elon Musk said X would charge users<\/a> \u201ca small monthly payment\u201d to use its service \u2014 a necessity, he explained, in order to combat the \u201cvast armies of bots\u201d on the platform. But in an interview this week at the Code Conference<\/a>, X CEO Linda Yaccarino <\/a>seemed to be caught off guard by a question about this plan, asking the interviewer first to repeat the question, then asking if Musk had actually said if X was planning to move to a subscription for all users or was he \u201cjust thinking about it?\u201d<\/p>\n CNBC\u2019s Julia Boorstin, who was conducting the interview, had wanted to know how such a shift would impact X\u2019s business, which today is largely reliant on ad revenue. Yaccarino, who joined<\/a> X from NBCU where she had been chairman of its advertising and partnerships group, would surely have known if X was attempting to shift away from its largely ad-supported model to one that also relied on user subscriptions to generate revenue. (Or at least keep the bots at bay!)<\/p>\n When asked how many users X might lose with such a change, Yaccarino seemed flustered. She asked Boorstin to clarify if Musk had said X was moving to this model or rather if he had just floated the idea.<\/p>\n (For the record, Musk had announced in a live-streamed\u00a0conversation<\/a> with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on September 18, that the company was \u201cmoving to a small monthly payment\u201d for use of the X platform. He did not appear to be suggesting it was just a passing thought at the time, as he went on to explain how a small fee paid by all users would make it prohibitive for spammers to profit from their bots.)<\/p>\n When Yaccarino didn\u2019t directly answer the question, Boorstin pressed, asking if the X CEO had been consulted about the decision.<\/p>\n \u201cWe talk about everything,\u201d Yaccarino vaguely replied, again side-stepping an answer.<\/p>\n The interviewer noted Yaccarino\u2019s background was in advertising \u2014 a point she made likely because it would be surprising if Musk had made his decision about charging fees without the former ad exec\u2019s input.<\/p>\n But Yaccarino cut her off.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy wouldn\u2019t he?\u201d she responded, somewhat combatively. \u201cDo you think Elon brought me to the company to be the head of advertising\u2026or do you think he brought me to run the company and to deliver to our users the best possible experience?\u201d<\/p>\n She then went on to expound upon the future of X, a platform that planned to broaden its horizons in a number of ways \u2014 by allowing users to watch videos, for example, and soon, transact. She also touted her past experience in pushing legacy media companies to innovate.<\/p>\n \u201cThat is a whole experience where there is no surrogate. There is no surrogate for X,\u201d Yaccarino said.<\/p>\n But as the question of user subscriptions was still not addressed, Boorstin tried once again, asking if Yaccarino thought a subscription-based X was a good plan, if she was consulted, and whether or not she thought X should still retain some free tier. She also questioned if Yaccarino was really in more of a COO role, given that product teams at X still report to Musk. Or perhaps a CEO in name only.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, not nice,\u201d Yaccarino responded, referring to the final comment about her lack of power, before continuing to explain. \u201c[Musk]\u00a0runs product. He runs technology. He leads a team of exceptionally talented engineers\u2026Who wouldn\u2019t want Elon Musk sitting by their side running product?\u201d<\/p>\n Some audience members raised their hands and laughs were heard.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, however, the CEO of X never directly answered any of the questions about the proposed subscription model at X that Musk had discussed.<\/p>\n If anything, her responses indicated she was either unaware of such a plan or didn\u2019t think it was anything beyond being in the idea phase at this point. It wasn\u2019t clear she even understood what the intention was, as she was unable to touch on the bots issue or how fees would work to keep them off the service.<\/p>\n Of course, as a former ad exec, she may not have wanted to spook X advertisers into thinking that X\u2019s days as a free, ad-supported service were limited in some capacity.<\/p>\n Overall, the interview was a messy one, with Yaccarino seemingly flustered by basic questions about X\u2019s business as well as those regarding Musk\u2019s activity, whether that was his proposed lawsuit against the ADL<\/a>, subscriptions, or staffing for election integrity. In fact, she denied X was disbanding X\u2019s election integrity team<\/a> hours after Musk had posted on X that they were \u201cgone.\u201d<\/p>\n She also seemed to not have a precise grip on X\u2019s user numbers, at one point saying X had \u201c200 to 250 [million]\u201d daily active users\u2026\u201dsomething like that.\u201d<\/p>\n She also said that X had 540 million global monthly active users, even though Musk had said only days ago that figure was 550 million.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n The larger takeaway from the discussion was that Yaccarino and Musk were not, perhaps, quite on the same page when it came to running X and that on some of X\u2019s biggest moves, the CEO was out of the loop.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n