Linda Yaccarino steps down as CEO of Elon Musk’s X
Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X, stepped down from her position on Wednesday morning after two years.
“When @elonmusk and I first spoke of his imaginative and prescient for X, I knew it will be the chance of a lifetime to hold out the extraordinary mission of this firm,” Yaccarino wrote. “I’m immensely grateful to him for entrusting me with the accountability of defending free speech, turning the corporate round, and reworking X into the All the things App.”
X proprietor Elon Musk replied, “Thanks to your contributions,” and has not made every other remark about the way forward for the CEO position at X.
Whereas Yaccarino was not candid about her causes for departing her position, she made her announcement mere hours after X’s AI chatbot, Grok, was taken offline after happening an antisemitic tirade. Her departure additionally comes on the identical day that Musk is meant to disclose Grok 4.
Yaccarino joined the corporate simply months into Musk’s possession, leaving her longtime position as chairwoman of world promoting and partnerships at NBCUniversal.
Given her stature as an promoting government, Yaccarino was introduced in as X CEO to take care of relationships with advertisers amid a large shift in platform management when Musk purchased Twitter.
Her job was not simple. Throughout the first six months of her tenure, Musk used his private X account to endorse the antisemitic “nice substitute” conspiracy, in addition to different debunked conspiracy theories like Pizzagate. He went on to sue nonprofit analysis teams like Middle for Countering Digital Hate and Media Issues, which printed a report that highlighted X’s show of extremist content material beside commercials for corporations like IBM and Apple, main them and different main advertisers to depart the platform.
Whereas Yaccarino presumably tried to fix relationships with advertisers, Musk continued to complicate her efforts. Onstage on the DealBook convention in November 2023, Musk was requested about these pauses in promoting, to which he replied, “Go f— your self,” then waved to the viewers and stated “Hey, Bob,” referring to Disney CEO Bob Iger, who was in attendance.
Musk apologized for these remarks, and Yaccarino stood by him.
“X is enabling an info independence that’s uncomfortable for some individuals,” she stated on the time. “We’re a platform that permits individuals to make their very own selections. And right here’s my perspective relating to promoting: X is standing at a novel and superb intersection of Free Speech and Major Avenue — and the X group is highly effective and is right here to welcome you.”