New Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino’s Elon Musk interview has resurfaced

At some point in time the interview on “Twitter 2.0: From Conversations to Collaborations” conference in April, a less determined interviewer might have moved on to other topics, but Yaccarino continued to press Musk.

The audience was filled with marketing executives, many of whom became obsessed with Twitter advertising after Musk’s $44 billion acquisition last year. Twitter’s main source of revenue has long been ads, but that fell after Musk—a self-described “free-speech absolutist”—bought the company. Advertisers, fearing that their campaigns will be seen as close to the proliferation of racism, conspiracy, and other objectionable content, have canceled or scaled back their campaigns.

“I have to push you a little bit,” Yaccarino told Musk, “because there are a lot of people in this room, they’re voting with their pocketbooks.” Some of them, faced with the “challenge” of Musk’s controversial “viewpoints” (he regularly tweets about politics and business) are still “holding back” and not advertising, he said, adding, “What are you going to tell them in this room?”

Musk replied that the audience should take his tweets with a grain of salt, because it is difficult to convey the tone of a tweet. “So something that can be sarcastic or a joke or, something like that, can be seen as serious when it’s not.” He blames the media for putting his tweets in the worst possible light because it competes with Twitter for ad dollars.

He then questioned whether Musk should be held to a higher standard in his tweet, saying, “A lot of people think you can be provocative.”

Musk responded, “I think the same standard should apply to me as it applies to everyone on Twitter.” He then attacked traditional journalists and emphasized the importance of promoting citizen journalism, saying that “it is very important to hear the voice of the people… chief of major publications.”

Yaccarino responded, “So let me pull you back to what’s important to the people in this room, and that’s the protection of their ad campaigns.” He said there should be an opportunity for people to “influence what you build.”

Musk responded, “If I say, yes, you can influence me, that’s wrong, that’s very wrong, because that’s a reduction of freedom of speech.”

Rather than continue, Yaccarino pushes this point further:

“I want to be specific about influence. It’s an open feedback loop for the advertising experts in this room to help make Twitter a place where they can be excited about investing more money: product development, ad safety, moderation inside. That’s the influence.”

Musk responded, “It’s all very well to say you want to see your advertising in some places on Twitter and not in other places. But it’s not good to try to tell Twitter what to do. And if that means the advertising dollars are gone, it’s gone. But freedom of speech is paramount.”

Musk applauded that line, where another interviewer might have changed subjects. But Yaccarino came first. He noted that the old Twitter had a “very well-populated, well-loved council of influence … where they had repeated access, or had, repeated access, to you.” Under Musk, Twitter stopped gathering its ad influence council, a quarterly meeting between Twitter and about three dozen top advertisers to discuss various business issues.

He described the council as “a repetitive feedback loop from your main stakeholders, your advertisers” and asked if he would commit to the stage to turn it around.

Musk did not agree with the idea of ​​a “council of influence” but agreed that “feedback would be appropriate,” adding that “if someone spends money for their ad campaign, it should produce results for their organization or it doesn’t make sense.”

As an interviewer that day, Yaccarino was helped to stay on point by identifying the audience: marketing professionals wondering if they should advertise on Twitter. However, he gave a strong performance and showed a willingness to continue to push the owner of Twitter – to whom he must answer.