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Linda Yaccarino. Photo via Getty
Hello!
Everyone is buzzing about Linda Yaccarino stepping down as the CEO of Elon Musk’s X after two years at the helm.
During her tenure, she often referenced creators in public remarks and in posts on X. But the company has had a mixed track record when it comes to creator tools and making it a more popular destination for influencers.
When Elon Musk bought the social network previously known as Twitter in 2022, he talked a big game about attracting creators—and we expected he would roll out a bunch of new features to do so. Musk threw out a variety of ideas, from resurrecting beloved six-second video app Vine to outlining to staff his ambitions to take on YouTube by making X a home for video creators.
Yaccarino oversaw only two major initiatives: original video shows and revenue sharing with creators. Both have had their ups and downs.
Original Shows
X’s ambitions to attract more creators with original video shows got off to a rocky start. Former CNN anchor Don Lemon's show was canceled in March 2024 after a tense interview with Musk. The two parties are locked in a lawsuit over the matter.
Before that, Paris Hilton suspended ads on X from her media company 11:11 Media about a month after announcing a splashy content partnership with the platform, due to concerns about antisemitism and pro-Nazi posts.
Still, X has been able to secure deals with high-profile names. Khloe Kardashian launched her new video podcast “Khloé in Wonder Land” on X, which means she posts it on the social network first for a period of time before it goes elsewhere. Tennis greats Serena and Venus Williams are also launching a video show on X in August.
Last week, the NFL announced it would be relaunching its annual Top 100 list, which ranks players, as an original series on X. Though the top 10 finale will still run on the NFL Network on September 1, the NFL will also share two short-form episodes highlighting two players on the list every weekday throughout the summer.
Mitchell Smith, X's head of original content, said the company’s video efforts this year have moved from a “crawl” to a “walk,” in an interview with Business Insider that was published on Wednesday morning before Yaccarino made her announcement.
Since early 2024, X said it has released more than 300 episodes of content across 18 original shows, amassing more than 700 million video views and 2 billion impressions. Smith told Business Insider that X wants to double its output over the next year and a half.
Creator Payments
Musk in February 2023 announced that X would begin sharing revenue with creators on ads shown in the replies of their posts—with a catch. They had to pay for X’s subscription offering to be eligible.
At first, some X influencers, particularly conservative ones, shared they were making as much as $20,000. Others complained about the sums dropping over time.
In March 2024, X announced that it had paid out more than $45 million to over 150,000 creators since launching its program. That figure pales in comparison to other social platforms. Snapchat said it paid out more than $500 million to creators and media partners in 2024, while YouTube, seen by creators as the gold standard for money-making opportunities, paid out more than $70 billion to creators, artists and media companies from 2021 to 2023.
In October, X announced a major change to the program. It no longer pays creators based on ads that appear in the replies, but based on engagement of creators’ content from “Premium” users who pay for X.
The Takeaway: Well before Musk bought Twitter, creators had found it difficult to make money on the social network. In 2021, Twitter stepped up efforts to appeal to creators, including acquiring newsletter service Revue, adding live audio feature Spaces, introducing tipping and starting Super Follows, which allowed creators to charge their top fans for bonus tweets.
After Musk’s takeover, X did away with many of those attempts, including shutting down newsletters and tipping features. It’s made some attempts to incentivize them, but most creators tell me they spend little effort building followings on the network. It will be up to Yaccarino’s successor to change their views.
Here’s what else is going on…
Deals & Debuts
See The Information’s Creator Economy Database for an exclusive list of private companies and their investors.
TikTok’s new U.S. app is expected to operate on a separate algorithm and data system from the global version of the short-form video app, Reuters reported. That helps answer one question, but as we outlined in Tuesday’s newsletter, there are still a lot of questions about what the new app will look like and how it will function.
Spotify said it returned podcast linking tool Pod.link to its original developer, Nathan Gathright. Similar to link-in-bio startups on social media bios, Podlink offers one link to a podcast on all podcasting services. The startup was purchased by Podsights, a podcast advertising measurement company, in February 2021. Spotify acquired Podsights a year later.
“As we continue investing in native solutions that help creators and publishers track and promote their podcast episodes more effectively, we’ve decided to return Pod.link to its founder,” Spotify said in a statement.
Moonvalley, an AI video startup, released its AI model Marey, which is trained on licensed video data.
Overheard
In a 2,000-word essay posted to Meta Platforms’ internal message system, an outgoing AI researcher named Tijmen Blankevoort offered a harsh assessment of the issues that have impeded the company’s AI efforts, including a “culture of fear” that has led to a lack of collaboration, The Information reported.
“Instead of being motivated by our mission, or an aspiration to build something great, many people I’ve talked to are motivated by the fear of getting fired,” Blankevoort wrote. “This attitude runs through the company like a metastatic cancer.” It has led to a culture of “every person for themselves,” as well as “land-grabbing, project-sniping, stealing work,” he added.
Creator Corner
Time released its first list of the 100 most influential creators on Wednesday. The list includes mega creators such as MrBeast, Alix Earle and Kai Cenat as well as creators with specific niches such as Alexis Nikole Nelson, known online as @blackforager, who teaches her 4.5 million followers on TikTok how to identify wild foods.
Grace Helbig, a longtime YouTube creator since 2006, signed with Proud Management, a creator management company.
People on the Move
Jodie Stocker Kennedy joined Spotter as chief revenue officer. Most recently, she was senior director at Walmart Connect, which is the retailer’s internal advertising platform.
Thank you for reading the Creator Economy Newsletter! I’d love your feedback, ideas and tips: kaya@theinformation.com.
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