Some airlines are no longer offering customer service via Twitter due to the changes. Transportation authorities and public health agencies stopped automatically posting security alerts until Twitter backed out of plans to have them pay the higher API fees. There may be more confusion. Musk has said he will be purging inactive accounts, which could potentially allow dead celebrity usernames to be taken over.
Working with celebrities or other high-profile users isn’t exactly outside Yaccarino’s expertise. She has appeared on stage numerous times alongside TV stars and journalists to pitch NBC to advertisers. She has also brokered partnership agreements with other media and technology companies. Perhaps the biggest card she can play is to point out that there are still very few alternatives to Twitter that actually do well. People and organizations want an outlet to communicate with their fans and customers, and Twitter remains one of the few places that can provide that.
Soothe business quarrels
Since Musk’s acquisition of Twitter in October, a series of vendors have sued the company for failing to pay for software, office space and other services. Hordes of laid-off and laid-off staff are in arbitration over the hasty handling of their departures. Even Twitter’s janitors went on strike for not renewing their shifts.
About the only company to strike a new deal with Twitter since the beginning of Musk’s reign is Yaccarino’s previous employer, NBCUniversal. The company announced early this month that it would be promoting content from the Paris 2024 Olympic Games on Twitter, expanding efforts during previous games.
Appeasing landlords and software suppliers could be a new adventure for Yaccarino, who is more familiar with media deals. But that’s just a start. Regulators such as the US Federal Trade Commission have questioned Twitter’s compliance with privacy rules and other legal requirements under Musk. Brokering speedy settlements on all the different fronts could help lift some of the clouds hanging over Twitter, but it may take some time for Yaccarino to catch up.
Become profitable
Musk has cut costs at every opportunity since buying Twitter, saying layoffs and other measures were necessary to keep the company from going out of business. NBC, too, has slashed costs during economic downturns, forcing department leaders like Yaccarino to figure out which expenses to cut. But NBC still ran lavish advertiser presentations and red carpet events to keep the dollars going.
How old-fashioned tactics like that suit Musk’s austerity is unclear. He is known for urging employees at his other companies to rethink parts and procurement to radically reduce the cost of mass-producing rockets and electric cars. Yaccarino will need to work with Musk to make Twitter friendlier to advertisers, such as improving systems that measure whether ad purchases or drive brand recognition, without increasing labor and technology costs.
Treat Musk
The de facto leader of Tesla, Twitter, SpaceX, the Boring Company, Neuralink, a personal philanthropy and possibly a budding rival to ChatGPT maker OpenAI, Musk is spread thin, as he has admitted. He relies on hardcore lieutenants to get things done while he focuses on something else. But his fastidious style and habit of parachuting in and out of his ventures has led to him hurtling through consultants, friends, and girlfriends in the blink of an eye.
Yaccarino has worked under demanding media barons like Ted Turner, and she and Musk may have a good business relationship for now. But how long that will last is anyone’s guess. Musk fired a product leader at Twitter in February whom he believed to be loyal to him who helped drive the desired changes. Musk’s habit of conducting business or announcing changes of heart through tweets can catch subordinates and allies alike off guard.
More optimistically, Musk and SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell have managed to coexist since he convinced her to apply in 2002, with her ability to get things done that meet Musk’s expectations. It has helped that both have risen through the ranks as engineers. Whether Yaccarino, who spent her career in television, can work just as productively with Musk in the language of Internet software is not so clear. All the scrutiny of social media companies she did to plow them over in her last job certainly can’t hurt.
