LAS VEGAS — Linda Yaccarino, CEO of even more powered by AI.
Yaccarino boasted that the Elon Musk-owned social media platform was heading toward 2025 at “breakneck speed” during his keynote speech at the multi-day event, hosted by the Consumer Technology Association.
During her interview with lead host Catherine Herridge — the award-winning investigative reporter fired by CBS News last year — Yaccarino touted a “Holy Grail” advertising-focused feature called “Trend Genius.”
The software automatically boosts advertising campaigns on
“This is something only X can do,” said Yaccarino, who said X has “deployed and shipped over 250 product innovations” since Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in 2022.
The feature has been beta tested over the past few months, she added.
Yaccarino was interviewed just hours after rival Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg announced his company would abandon its widely criticized fact-checking in favor of an X-style “community notes” feature.
“Mark, Meta – welcome to the party,” Yaccarino joked.
She was also asked about Musk’s new role alongside Vivek Ramaswamy as head of the Department of Government Effectiveness (DOGE) and whether that would affect X.
“I don’t think there are two better people than Elon and Vivek to do this,” Yaccarino said. “As Americans, we should all support Doge’s resounding success. I would expect other countries to follow.
Elsewhere at the world’s biggest trade show, tech policy experts clashed in a heated debate over whether Washington DC’s antitrust enforcement helps or hurts innovation.
Luther Lowe, a leading critic of Google and head of public policy at Y Combinator, a startup company, warned that big tech companies like the search giant and Apple are “trying to choke off the oxygen supply.” by taking actions that benefit them at the expense of smaller competitors.
“If there is vigorous enforcement against this type of behavior when it falls outside the boundaries of the Sherman Act, Big Tech can coexist with Little Tech,” Lowe said.
Experts on both sides of the debate largely agreed that President-elect Donald Trump’s choice of antitrust bulldogs like Gail Slater to head the Justice Department and Andrew Ferguson to chair the FTC indicated he would pursue an approach uncompromising in matters of competition policy.
“They’re going to be driven by a serious, pro-innovation agenda,” said Tyler Grimm, principal at Miller Strategies and former chief counsel for the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee.
The Las Vegas Convention Center’s exhibit space featured thousands of exhibits, including a huge Segway exhibit that featured a robotic lawn mower.
Tech giant Siemens’ booth included details of its collaboration with aerospace startup JetZero, which is using the company’s design software to fine-tune a futuristic wide-body aircraft with top-mounted engines and storage. individual bags. A Siemens representative said the company’s goal is to have a flying plane by 2030.
A huge crowd formed at the booth of Chinese robotics company Unitree, whose humanoid robots shook hands with attendees and performed backflips in front of shocked attendees.
Elsewhere, Xpeng Aero HT showed off what it dubbed a “land aircraft carrier” – an electric van with a flying vehicle that could fit in the trunk. The company plans to make its first deliveries in 2026.
CES attendees were still excited about Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s keynote the night before, which played out in the lobby as guests arrived at the convention center.
Huang received a rock star welcome during the unveiling of Nvidia’s powerful next-generation Blackwell AI chip lineup at the Mandalay Bay resort’s packed Michelob Ultra Arena. Attendees waited in line for several hours to enter.
At one point, the billionaire, who was wearing his trademark leather jacket, joked that he wanted a beer after lugging a “shield” displaying the full architecture of the AI chip on stage for several minutes – provoking the laughter of the noisy crowd.
Some content creators in the audience joked about playing “Nvidia bingo,” as Huang used several buzzwords that fans of the chip supplier have come to expect from his speeches.
The chips, which use AI to render incredibly realistic graphics on devices used by gamers and software developers, were the centerpiece of a presentation that initially pushed Nvidia shares to a new all-time high and garnered positive reviews from analysts. Stocks then plunged amid a broader market sell-off.
Huang also spoke at length about plans for new AI models, including Nvidia Cosmos, a so-called “global foundation model” that the executive said would boost efforts to train software to help vehicles and robots without driver to navigate the physical world.
Many CES attendees and exhibitors joked that it was almost impossible to find a booth that didn’t involve AI in some way.
