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FLASHBACK: New Twitter CEO Lectured Elon For Tweeting After 3am, Called For Greater Advertiser ‘Influence’ Over Content Moderation

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2 years ago

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After Elon Musk named NBCUniversal advertising chief Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter, footage has emerged of an interview between the two in which Yaccarino argued that advertisers should have more “influence” over certain aspects of the business, including content moderation and product development.

During the interview with Musk, which took place in April, Yaccarino suggested that advertisers should work with Twitter to turn the company into a place where they will be “excited about investing more money.”

“Product development, ad safe, content moderation,” she said. “That’s what the influence is.”

Musk appeared to disagree with Yaccarino’s assertions, instead prioritizing the importance of free speech values over ad revenue. “It’s totally cool to say that you want to have your advertising appear in certain places in Twitter and not in other places,” he said, “but it is not cool to try to say what Twitter will do.”

The tech mogul went on to say that “freedom of speech is paramount,” adding “if that means losing advertiser dollars, we lose it.”

Yaccarino also lectured Musk on tweeting after 3:00 a.m., with Musk conceding that he has “gotten himself into trouble a few times.”

“I’m well aware of those,” Yaccarino replied. “Will you commit to be a little more specific and not tweet after 3:00 a.m.? People in this room would like to see that,” she continued. “It will make them feel more confident.”

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“I will aspire to tweet less after 3:00 a.m.,” Musk replied. “But it is important… I mean if I were to say ‘yes, you could influence me,’ that would be wrong, that be very wrong. Because that would be a diminishment of freedom of speech.”

She also called on Musk to reinstitute Twitter 1.0’s “much loved influence council.” calling it a “recurring feedback loop” where they had “recurring access” to Twitter.

Musk pushed back on the idea, rejecting to the word “influence” and saying that such a move could “create a backlash among the public.”

“Because if the public thinks that their views are being determined by a small number of CMOs in America, they will be upset about that,” he continued.

He did note that feedback from advertisers spending money on the platform was “appropriate.”



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