A recent Thursday, journalists stipulating the briefing room for printing the White House saw a strange face in a rotating seat designated for the new media.
He was occupied by John Stoll, who had recently been appointed head of news to X, the social platform owned by Elon Musk.
“As you all know – you are all on X – hundreds of millions of users, a great contingent of independent journalists and news organizations through geographical areas and political ghosts,” said Karoline Leavitt, press secretary of the White House, through an introduction. He then ordered Mr. Stoll to ask the first question.
The decision of the White House to grant X a position of power and visibility alongside the news organizations was one of the growing number of advantages landed by the Social Media Company, since Mr. Musk became omnipresent on the side of President Trump.
From the election, the platform has become a source of reference for information on the administration, since Musk provides real -time updates on its government efficiency department and objectives for the reduction of federal costs for its over 219 million followers. In February, at least a dozen government agencies, including the service of internal revenue and the Department of Defense, established new accounts x focused on doge to ask for suggestions on federal waste and fraud. Users looking for an audience with Mr. Musk have increasingly crowded on the site in the hope of capturing their ear.
The positioning of X as a powerful government spokesman has contributed to strengthening the platform, even if the company continues to fight. He has undertaken to achieve the objectives of revenue and advertising in recent months, according to the internal e -mails seen by the New York Times. Deals with regulatory control abroad. And on March 28, Mr. Musk announced that he sold X to his artificial intelligence start-up, Xai, combining a company in difficulty with faster growth.
Even so, the greater visibility of X under the Trump administration stands out – and has had a halo effect. The bankers have sold billions in the debt of the company in recent weeks, helped by the optimism of investors on the alignment of Mr. Musk with Mr. Trump. The main advertisers such as Amazon and Apple are back.
While it is not clear for how long the new momentum of X will last and how much the direct result of the proximity of Mr. Musk to Mr. Trump is, the recent successes are remarkable after years of business trouble.
“X is where everything happens in real time,” wrote Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X, on the platform last month. “Raw ideas and no filter with more truths and more voices.”
Mr. Musk did not respond to a commentary request. X and the White House refused to comment.
The changes for X follow a vortex a few months in which Musk became one of the most influential councilors of Mr. Trump, including the guidance of the government’s efficiency department. From a suite of offices next to the White House, Mr. Musk, who also guides the manufacturer of electric cars Tesla and the Rocket Company Spacex, was decisive to establish and implement administrative policy.
X has faced obstacles since Musk purchased it for $ 44 billion at the end of 2022. He fired over 80 % of the staff and has removed the rules of moderation of the contents that limit the hate speech. Some advertisers left, worried that their brands would appear next to offensive content.
In December, Fidelity, who invested in the acquisition of the company by Mr. Musk, evaluated X at $ 12 billion.
But in February, X bankers were finally able to sell billions of dollars of debt to investors. Months earlier, investors were negotiating to buy that debt with a 10 % loss at 20 percent for banks. “Some companies may be nervous to have been seen how not to be on board with the administration because they are not involved in X,” said Jo-Ellen Pozner, associate professor of management at the Leavey School of Business of the Santa Clara University.
However, X faced the continuous struggles. In January, Mr. Musk wrote in an e -mail to employees who were not “not very impressive” and that the company “was barely to equalize”. At the beginning of March, X had served $ 91 million ads in the first quarter, he said another message, well below his $ 153 million goal.
“The time to take the finish line is now,” he read the E -mail.
The agreement announced on March 28 by Mr. Musk evaluated X to $ 33 billion and linked his fortunes to Xai, which was evaluated at $ 80 billion.
“We do not have a great sense of how much one of these companies applies,” said Eric Talley, professor to Columbia Law School specialized in the corporate government. “They almost have to get up and fall together.”
Mr. Musk, who has long fraught for the media coverage of himself and his companies, in recent months has placed X as a new media, using his power of news to attract the spotlight on his platform.
“Now you are the media,” he published on January 15, embarking on a video of himself in which he launched X as the future of city journalism. “The Legacy media are controlled by a handful of publishers in chief; that’s why I encourage people to write things about the X platform,” he said in the video.
While Musk cut the costs of the government, the Doge initiative received an X account and a gray verification badge for the government’s official accounts. The account now advertises the successes of the initiative and rejects critics.
“He is transforming X as a platform on average government, without any kind of constraint,” said David Kaye, professor of law at the University of California, Irvine, who studies speech online.
In February, X also added Doge Conti for government agencies, including the administration of social security and the commission for securities and exchanges. While the agencies have already accounts on X, the new doge -themed accounts have received the gray check badges normally reserved for government agencies. They operated as a tip lines for the cost reduction project, encouraging users to share information on federal waste.
The conservatives discovered that X is a direct pipeline for Mr. Musk, allowing them to influence federal policy. He responded to the viral complaints about the government on the platform and its cost reduction initiative has marked users’ concerns as “set”.
Senator Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican who focused for a long time on the reduction of government costs, described himself in a November place like the “best guard dog” in the Senate. Mr. Musk replied with two American flag emojis.
“Thanks for your many years of hard work on improving the efficiency of the government! Super useful,” Musk wrote in an exchange of December.
X created a head of news to supervise the company’s partnerships with media companies that advertise or share their work on the platform and have hired Mr. Stoll, a former publisher of the Wall Street Journal, in January.
Shortly after Mr. Trump came in office, the administration decided to shake the press room of the White House. A prominent chair on the side of the lock of the press secretary would be assigned to a “new media” journalist, a term that includes podcaster, influencers and creators of “content”.
So far during the only appearance of Mr. Stoll in the press room, he said his presence was a testimony of the “mental openness of the White House.
He therefore asked for “confidence in the competence of this administration to go on tiptoe with Vladimir Putin”.
Ryan Mac Contributed relationships.