The social media platform has experienced a return in advertisers and new exposure as an official source of government news.
On a recent Thursday, journalists cramming into the White House press briefing room saw an unfamiliar face in a rotating seat designated for new media.
It was occupied by John Stoll, who had recently been appointed head of news at X, the social platform owned by Elon Musk.
“As you all know — you are all on X — it’s home to hundreds of millions of users, a large contingent of independent journalists and news organizations across geographies and political spectrums,” said Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, by way of an introduction. She then directed Stoll to ask the first question.
The decision by the White House to grant X a position of power and visibility alongside news organisations was one of an increasing number of perks landed by the social media company, as Musk became omnipresent at President Trump’s side.
Since the election, the platform has become a go-to source for administration information, as Musk provides real-time updates about his Department of Government Efficiency and targets for federal cost-cutting to his more than 219 million followers. In February, at least a dozen government agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service and Defence Department, established new DOGE-focused X accounts to seek tips about federal waste and fraud. Users seeking an audience with Musk have increasingly flocked to the site in hopes of catching his ear.
The positioning of X as a powerful government mouthpiece has helped bolster the platform, even as the company continues to struggle. It has scrambled to meet revenue and advertising goals in recent months, according to internal emails seen by The New York Times. It faces regulatory scrutiny abroad. And on March 28, Musk announced that he had sold X to his artificial intelligence start-up, xAI, combining a struggling company with a faster-growing one.
Even so, X’s heightened visibility under the Trump administration stands out — and has had a halo effect. Bankers have sold off billions in the company’s outstanding debt in recent weeks, aided by investor optimism about Musk’s alignment with Trump. Major advertisers such as Amazon and Apple have returned.
While it’s unclear how long X’s new momentum will last, and how much of it is a direct result of Musk’s proximity to Trump, the recent successes are notable after years of business woes.
“X is where everything happens in real time,” Linda Yaccarino, X’s chief executive, wrote on the platform last month. “Raw ideas and no filters with more truth and more voices.” Musk did not respond to a request for comment. X and the White House declined to comment.
The changes for X follow a whirlwind few months in which Musk became one of Trump’s most influential advisers, including leading the Department of Government Efficiency. From an office suite next to the White House, Musk, who also leads the electric car manufacturer Tesla and the rocket company SpaceX, has been instrumental in setting and enacting administration policy.
X has faced hurdles since Musk bought it for $44 billion in late 2022. He dismissed more than 80 percent of the staff and removed content moderation rules that limited hate speech. Some advertisers departed, worried their brands would appear next to offensive content.
In December, Fidelity, which invested in Musk’s acquisition of the company, valued X at $12 billion.
But in February, X’s bankers were finally able to sell billions of dollars of debt to investors. Months earlier, investors were negotiating to buy that debt at a loss of 10 percent to 20 percent for the banks. “Some companies might be nervous about being seen as not being on board with the administration because they’re not involved in X,” said Jo-Ellen Pozner, an associate professor of management at the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University.
The immigration status of a Duke basketball star from South Sudan is unclear. Trump says tariffs will stay until the trade deficit disappears.
A judge refused to pause her demand that the Trump administration return a deported Maryland man. Still, X faced continued struggles.
In January, Musk wrote in an email to employees that revenue was “unimpressive” and that the company was “barely breaking even.” As of early March, X had served $91 million of ads in the first quarter, another message said, well below its target of $153 million.
“The time to sprint to the finish line is now,” the email read.
The deal announced on March 28 by Musk valued X at about $33 billion and tethered its fortunes to xAI, which was valued at $80 billion.
“We don’t have great sense of what either of these companies are worth,” said Eric Talley, a professor at Columbia Law School specializing in corporate governance. “They almost have to rise and fall together.”
Musk, who has long bristled at media coverage of himself and his companies, has in recent months positioned X as a new media outlet, using his own news-making power to draw the spotlight to his platform.
“You are the media now,” he posted on Jan. 15, resharing a video of himself in which he pitched X as the future of citizen journalism. “The legacy media is controlled by a handful of editors in chief; that’s why I encourage people to write things on the X platform,” he said in the video.
As Musk slashed government costs, the DOGE initiative received an X account and a grey verification badge for official government accounts. The account now advertises the initiative’s accomplishments and pushes back on critics.
Conservatives have found that X is a direct pipeline to Musk, allowing them to influence federal policy.
New York Times News Service