On Wednesday, Linda Yaccarino announced that she was stepping down as CEO of Elon Musk’s social network X, after two years at the helm. In a statement posted on the micro-blogging platform, Yaccarino said she had “decided to step down as CEO of X” following what she described as “two incredible years”.
“When Elon Musk and I first spoke of his vision for X, I knew it would be the opportunity of a lifetime to carry out the extraordinary mission of this company,” Yaccarino wrote. “I’m immensely grateful to him for entrusting me with the responsibility of protecting free speech, turning the company around, and transforming X into the Everything App.”
Musk responded with a brief statement to Yaccarino’s post, saying, “Thank you for your contributions.”
The veteran ad executive’s exit comes just months after Musk’s AI startup, xAI, acquired the site, and a day after the company’s AI-powered chatbot, Grok, began pushing antisemitic content in responses to users. It is, however, unclear if these events have anything to do with her departure from the social media site.
Yaccarino was confirmed as Musk’s replacement as the new X CEO by then Twitter, in May 2023, following a December 2022 poll in which Musk asked if he should step down as the head of Twitter after facing backlash to a new policy banning ‘free promotion’ of rival platforms. He lost it with 57.5% of 17,502,391 people voting in favor of him stepping down. Musk, however, at the time said he would step down as Twitter’s CEO after finding someone “foolish enough” to take on the position.
“I am excited to welcome Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter!” Musk said in a post, further stating that the former head of advertising at NBCUniversal “will focus primarily on business operations, while I focus on product design & new technology.”
A month prior, Yaccarino had interviewed Musk at her “Possible” advertising conference in Miami, in which she told the billionaire that some advertisers had a challenge with his points of view, to which Musk replied that some of his tweets should be taken with a “grain of salt”. In the same interview, the Penn State graduate also said: “If freedom of speech, as he says, is the bedrock of this country, I’m not sure there’s anyone in this room who could disagree with that.”
Musk hired Yaccarino as X CEO to maintain relationships with advertisers following a massive shift in platform leadership when Musk bought Twitter for USD$44 billion in a hostile takeover, which later led to massive changes on the platform, including the revamping of Twitter Blue, now Premium, which comes with a blue verification tick.
