Speaking at Vox Media’s annual Code Conference on Wednesday, Yaccarino defended the content on the site and said it was a safe place for brands. “Ninety percent of the top 100 advertisers have returned to the platform,” she said. “In the past 12 weeks alone, about 1,500 have returned.”

Yaccarino, formerly the ad chief at NBC Universal, was hand-picked by X owner Elon Musk to help bring advertisers back. After his chaotic takeover of Twitter last year, researchers found a rise in harmful content. That contributed to an exodus of advertisers, and Musk acknowledged this month that ad revenue is down 60%.

Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former head of trust and safety, also spoke at the Code Conference, saying that having Yaccarino on board will only go so far to restore brands’ confidence.

“Having a reasonable, tenured, well-respected executive is a good thing,” he said. But for advertisers to come back, “they’re going to need evidence of progress on safety that Twitter can’t provide”. 

Yaccarino said that Twitter was operating under a different set of rules during Roth’s tenure, and that X is a new company focused on freedom of expression. She also disputed characterisations that X isn’t hospitable to advertisers.

At the same time, Musk and X have continued to stir up controversy. The company recently laid off or fired members of its trust and safety and election integrity teams, and sued a research organisation that found harmful content on the platform. Meanwhile, Musk has continued to engage with polarising content on the site and threatened to sue the Anti-Defamation League. 

X has been working with independent companies to assess the content on its site and hired new employees in sales, partnerships and brand safety — teams that work directly with advertisers, Yaccarino said. She also said that X is taking election integrity very seriously despite recent cuts, and the San Francisco-based company continues to fight antisemitism.