Back in May, when X was reeling from Elon Musk’s ownership (which is still the case), Musk hired former NBCUniversal ad sales chief Linda Yaccarino to be CEO of X. Since X is now a private company, it is hard to gauge how Yaccarino has fared at the firm since she received the key to the executive washroom. We do know that Musk plans on turning X into a “Super App” modeled after China’s WeChat.
This might be a brilliant idea on Musk’s part since WeChat is the Swiss Army Knife of apps handling group messaging, text messaging, audio and video calls, financial transactions (through WeChat Pay), and more. WeChat has 1.671 billion monthly active users worldwide and 1.48 million monthly U.S. users. We say that Musk has a good idea, but whether he can pull it off is another question.
X CEO Yaccarino doesn’t have the X app icon on her first iPhone home screen page
Meanwhile, CEO Yaccarino might have put herself in a rather tight spot. While attending Vox Media’s Code 2023 conference in New York last week, the executive showed off her iPhone to the media and surprisingly her home screen did not include the X icon. Now, I don’t know about Yaccarino, but most iPhone users put the apps that they use the most on the first home screen page. This writer does that as well.
X CEO Yaccarino shows off the apps on her iPhone first home screen page which does not include X
Now it is possible that the X app icon can be found on another page, but if I were the CEO of X, you can be sure that the X app icon would be right on the first home screen page. And we question the CEO’s ability to think on her feet since she showed her phone to the press and allowed them to take photographs of it knowing full well that the X app icon wasn’t on it.
So what app icons does the CEO of X have on the first page of her home screen? According to 9to5Mac, she has Starbucks (which, to be fair, delivers the caffeine jolt all good executives need), Gmail, Messages, FaceTime, Wallet, Camera, and Calendar. And on her first home screen page you’ll find Facebook and Instagram, but alas, no X. And it’s not like she didn’t have room for it since she puts the Settings app icon in the dock.
During the interview, the executive appeared to be “rattled”
Per The Verge, Yaccarino was “rattled” during her interview at the conference and tried to defend Musk’s actions. She also said that X will turn profitable next year. But as reflected in the absence of the X app icon from the first home screen page, Yaccarino may be CEO, but that title means nothing when it comes to a business owned by Elon Musk.
During her media interview, Julia Boorstin, senior media and tech correspondent at CNBC, asked the CEO about Musk’s recent comment about charging a subscription fee to those who want to post on X. Yaccarino responded by asking “Can you repeat?” “Elon Musk announced you’re moving to an entirely subscription-based service,” Boorstin said. “Nothing free about using X.”
“Yaccarino then asked, “Did he say we were moving to it specifically, or is thinking about it?” “He said that’s the plan,” Boorstin responded, “Did he consult you before he announced that?” “We talk about everything,” Yaccarino said unconvincingly.
She does say the right things making comments like, “It’s a new day at X, and I’ll leave it at that,” and “X is a new company building a foundation based on free expression and freedom of speech.” But how serious is she about X if she doesn’t even consider it one of the most important apps on her phone-if she even has the app on her phone.
We would wonder how much longer Yaccarino has left at X if not for the thought that finding anyone to take this job would be a daunting task.
