If there was any question as to whether a new CEO would steer Elon Musk's Twitter in a new direction, it was answered on Monday.
And that answer, at least as understood by Twitter's user base, is "no."
Twitter's new CEO Linda Yaccarino addressed its employees in a company wide email on Monday. And, shortly after snippets from the email started to spread online, Yaccarino posted an amended version of the letter in a multi-tweet thread on her account.
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Looking through Yaccarino's memo, it seems pretty clear that this is still Elon Musk's company and Elon Musk's vision. Twitter owner, executive chair, and CTO Elon Musk is still very much running the show. And it's not just Musk's vision that Yaccarino is selling either. She is even explicitly laundering the myth of Musk in her own debut letter to its employees.
"Elon knew space exploration and electric vehicles needed transformation, so he did it," wrote Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino. "It’s also becoming clear that the global town square needs transformation—to drive civilization forward through the unfiltered exchange of information and open dialogue about the things that matter most to us."
"Have you ever been talking with someone particularly insightful and thought, you should have the freedom to speak your mind," Yaccarino continued. "We all should. Enter Twitter 2.0."
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This is basically Musk's spiel about protecting Twitter from the "woke mind virus" and his "extending the light of consciousness" talking points wrapped up in LinkedIn-post style, corporate speak. What does this mean, realistically speaking? Who knows, and Yaccarino's post did little to lay out what this vision actually entails from her own perspective. The only thing that has really changed on Twitter, content-wise, since Elon Musk has taken over has been a proliferation in spam, bots, and hate speech. Was that the transformation old Twitter 1.0 needed? It's one that has resulted in a huge loss in advertising revenue for the company.
"The success of Twitter 2.0 is all of our responsibility," tweeted Yaccarino, which probably worked better when emailed to Twitter's employees. Users on the platform, who are not paid by the company and have no skin in the game here, took this another way entirely.
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"No it's your responsibility," replied author and PR expert Ed Zitron.
Yaccarino, a former NBCUniversal ad executive, was hired by Elon Musk last month to take over his role as Twitter's CEO. Well respected in the advertising industry, Yaccarino appears to have been brought on-board by Musk to help save Twitter's fledgling advertising business, which is Twitter's main source of revenue.
Yaccarino just started her role as Twitter CEO last week, so it still remains to be seen if she can do so. But her positive, brand-friendly tone in her pitch to users and advertisers on Twitter stands in stark contrast to Musk's.
For example, on Friday, Yaccarino posted a tweet saying how "everyone's invited" to Twitter 2.0, making a call to brands to "#PartnerWithUs." That same day, her boss, Elon Musk, was going on a tweet marathon mocking transgender people and gender identity.
Linda Yaccarino's full email can be seen below, as obtained by The Verge:
Building Twitter 2.0 Together
Hello Twitter!
People keep asking me: Why Twitter? So, I’ll tell you.
From space exploration to electric vehicles, Elon knew these industries needed transformation, so he did it. More recently it has become increasingly clear that the global town square needs transformation—to drive civilization forward through the unfiltered exchange of information and open dialogue about the things that matter most to us.
Have you ever been talking with someone particularly insightful and thought, You’re brilliant—everybody should get the chance to hear this. Or, I’m learning so much from you—can we do this again? Or maybe it’s as simple as, You should have the freedom to speak your mind. We all should.
Enter Twitter 2.0.
Twitter is on a mission to become the world’s most accurate real-time information source and a global town square for communication. We’re on the precipice of making history—and that’s not an empty promise. That’s OUR reality.
When you start by wrapping your arms around this powerful vision, literally everything is possible. You have to genuinely believe—and work hard for that belief. And in this moment of complete reinvention, we have the opportunity to reach across aisles, create new partnerships, celebrate new voices, and build something together that can change the world. And from what I can tell so far, you’re built for this.
The success of Twitter 2.0 is all of our responsibility.
We need to think big.
We need to transform.
We need to do it all together.
And we can do it all by starting from first principles – questioning our assumptions and building something new from the ground up. It’s rare to have the chance to put a new future into the hands of every person, partner, and creator on the planet.
That’s exactly why I’m here – with all of YOU.
So, let’s dig our heels in (4 inches or flat!) and build Twitter 2.0 together.
Linda
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