Linda Yaccarino, one in every of Elon Musk’s prime deputies as CEO of X social media website, is leaving the corporate in a shocking transfer months after the platform was acquired by billionaire AI startup Xai.
Yaccarino, 61, made the announcement in a publish on X. Masks has a historical past of all of a sudden rejecting its agent. “I’ve determined to resign as CEO of X,” writes Jaccarino.
Her departure provides to the turbulence of masks’ huge enterprise empire, together with drops in gross sales in his electrical automotive maker Tesla and AI-related controversy. Musk was caught up in a verbal conflict with former ally Donald Trump.
Yaccarino, a veteran within the promoting trade, held a publish for 2 years after being featured as a way to stimulate X’s popularity amongst entrepreneurs who had escaped the platform over issues about hatred and in any other case poisonous content material. Each X and Yaccarino didn’t reply instantly to requests for remark as she didn’t give a particular purpose for her departure.
It was unclear when the CEO’s resignation would take impact.
“Thanks to your contribution,” Musk responded to X to Yaccarino’s resignation publish.
Whereas pleading with entrepreneurs, Yaccarino sued advertisers, generally known as the World Federation of Advertisers, with a significant trade group, claiming that he conspired to reject X-Advert {dollars}, together with boycotting the platform.
Advertisers’ confidence to flag
Yaccarino’s resignation got here the day after Grok, an AI chatbot developed by Xai, posted content material on the platform and praised Adolf Hitler. The publish was eliminated following public backlash, and Jaccarino writes that she is working to revive the belief of advertisers and prioritize X’s security.
Analysts stated Yaccarino’s work is difficult given the popularity of Musk and the extra pronounced placement of X’s excessive content material that has repelled some advertisers. “Jaccarino needed to set fires frequently whereas making an attempt to run the enterprise,” stated Jasmine Enberg, vice chairman of emarketer, including that it’s anticipated to point out progress in X’s promoting enterprise in 2025.
Da Davidson analyst Gil Luria, who beforehand chaired international promoting and partnerships at Comcast’s NBCuniversal, could have left as “the results of a scarcity of match between her method and Elon Musk’s model.” “This might need come to thoughts when Embedded AI Chat Grok started responding to AI posts in an more and more aggressive method yesterday.”
In March, Musk’s AI startup Xai acquired the social media platform in a $33 billion all-stock deal. Neither X nor Yaccarino stated who would exchange her.
Tesla, whose CEO is Musk, additionally handles departures of prime executives. Final month, the billionaire confidants of Tesla, Omead Afshar and North American HR director Jenna Ferua left the corporate final month, sources advised Reuters. Musk was spreading himself thinly this yr whereas working Trump’s authorities effectivity earlier than leaving the Publish in Might.
Tesla’s inventory slipped round 1% in information about Jaccarino.
X is tackling a heavy debt load, and Jaccarino typically needed to cope with the controversy stirred up by the masks in late 2023, together with help for anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
Beneath Yaccarino, X has launched a brand new function aimed toward remodeling social media websites into “all apps” supposed by Musk.
The corporate was additionally exploring X-credit or debit card deployments, the Monetary Occasions reported final month.
©Thomson Reuters 2025
