With 600 million users, X’s Linda Yaccarino doubles down on dismissing journalism

According to the platform’s CEO, X has nearly amassed 600 million monthly active users (MAUs) globally — a small increase on the 586 million MAUs that were reported in X’s own tools in January, but not a huge increase on the 570 million MAUs X claimed it had reached back in September 2024.

Still, nearly a third (31%) of that user growth is coming from Gen Z — drawn in, apparently, by a taste for authenticity and disposable income. Yaccarino pointed to their projected $36 trillion in spending power by 2024 as proof.

“X has emerged as the world’s most powerful culture signal, it really has become the global town square,” she said. “Where ideas collide, debate happens, truth rises and truly every voice is welcome.”

Suggesting that X has “bypassed or leap frogged legacy media,” Yaccarino claimed that 65% of its users identify the platform as their No. 1 news app.

“The new population, new generation, fueled by technology which has freed information, all of data and content consumption has changed forever,” she said.

In many ways, these comments reflect the twisted reinvention of Twitter’s premise. Before Musk bought it in October 2023, the social network prided itself on being a hub for credible news and trusted sources. Now, the divisive billionaire wants X to be the source — arguing again and again that unfiltered speech should replace what he dismisses as “legacy media.”

Nowhere is that shift clearer than in how X handles misinformation, hate speech and other content most users would rather avoid. The company scrapped many of its automated moderation systems in favor of “Community Notes” — crowdsourced fact checks and context from the user base — which now, according to Yaccarino, has 1 million “community noters” globally. In her view, the feature is “good for the world” because it’s “retraining us to respect the truth,” she noted.

“I think it’s really, really hard for legacy media to fact check and fight misinformation in real time, at the scale, the way X can, and now Community Notes, being the ecosystem leader,” she said.

But the tool was never meant to carry the full weight of content moderation. It was designed to supplement, not replace, more robust systems like internal review teams and AI tools for flagging obvious falsehoods.

Since X launched this feature globally in December 2022, others have followed suit, from Meta to TikTok, effectively deciding that people don’t need journalism when they have each other.

“We’re super excited that first Google, then Meta, more recently TikTok is partnering and following our lead in a dramatic ecosystem change of fact checking and aggressively fighting misinformation,” Yaccarino added.

If X’s higher ups want to position the platform as the antidote to news then AI is the engine driving the drive. That’s how Yaccarion spun Musk’s decision to sell X to his AI startup xAI. While its widely seen as a financial play — fold X into the AI boom and benefit from the revenue bump But its just as likely a data play: merging the two companies would give xAI access to the digital exhaust of X’s users to help train its models. 

“When you bring those two things together, you have this profound differentiator because the other AI offerings are static, and they are not powered by the real time data of X combined with the super, super capabilities of X,” said Yaccarino.

For better or worse, X is unique

Like many of the other platform CEOs, Yaccarino certainly wasn’t afraid to talk her platform up and discredit the competition during her conversation with Pompliano.

“If you compare X to the other platforms, the other platforms are where you go to lean back, dare I say tune out,” she said. “X is number one in attentiveness compared to all the other social platforms. So you’re leaning in, you’re seeking out information.”

Compared to Yaccarino’s previous stage efforts as CEO of arguably one of the most talked about and controversial platforms, this time around at Possible, she had confidence in abundance.

But what was very absent from the chat, given Possible is an advertiser event, was any real clue about how X is managing to sway those advertisers to spend on the platform. And it seems like that thought wasn’t lost on the audience either.

In the queue to get into Inspiration Hall ahead of Yaccarino’s stage moment, Digiday asked execs waiting in line about how they thought the audience would receive her this time around, given the series of mixed headlines about X and its leadership over the past couple of years.

Two media agency execs, who asked not to be named, expressed mixed opinions. “I think there is some simmering resentment that might uncork, but we’ll see,” said the first agency exec, who was barely audible as an onstage DJ spun earsplitting Reggaetón as the audience trickled into their seats.

“I think it would be very disrespectful,” if she was heckled in any way, said the second exec. “But we’d like to hear some assurances that ad sales negotiations with X will take place in the marketplace and not in court,” they added.

But Pompliano never touched on lingering brand safety concerns on the platform, or the legal actions it has brought to advertisers that have been reticent to market via X.

— Jim Cooper contributed reporting to this story