CEO’s Message to Staff: Don’t Follow Elon Musk’s Lead!

Linda Yaccarino, the Chief Executive Officer of X, who is responsible for managing the social network’s connections with advertisers, has expressed her backing for owner Elon Musk in a memo to staff. This comes after Musk made controversial remarks insulting brands that have distanced themselves from the platform.

“Our principles have no price tag and will not be compromised — ever,” Yaccarino wrote Thursday, a day after Musk told former advertisers, including the Walt Disney Co., to “f–” themselves. “No matter how they try, sideline critics who don’t understand our mission won’t bother us.”

Musk, at Wednesday’s DealBook conference, lashed out at advertisers who had suspended their campaigns to protest his posts earlier this month endorsing an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory in which he admitted Jews have a “dialectical hatred” of white people. At a conference in New York, Musk said that advertisers pulling their money are killing the company.

In a memo sent Thursday and viewed by Bloomberg, Yaccarino urged staff to watch Musk’s appearance at the conference if they hadn’t seen it. Musk’s “interview was candid and in-depth,” he said. “He shared an unparalleled and completely unpainted perspective and vision of the future.” Previously, Yaccarino had reposted a certain clip inviting advertisers through his own X account.

Yaccarino’s memo is the latest example of the CEO openly advocating for X’s owner despite his comments, which alienate the advertisers the company needs to stay afloat and make his own job more difficult. The company’s ad revenue has fallen more than 60% since Musk’s $44 billion takeover of Twitter, partly because of his behavior in responding to racist or anti-Semitic tweets. The platform, called X, still owes money to the banks that helped finance the transaction.