Linda Yaccarino on Wednesday said she’s stepping down as CEO of X, roughly two years after she assumed the top role at Elon Musk’s social media platform.
Yaccarino did not give a reason for her departure.
Her announcement follows a series of unflattering news stories about her boss and about X, most recently focused on Grok, the AI chatbot commissioned for the site, which has been spewing antisemitic misinformation since its code was updated last week.
“When [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 said in a post on X on Wednesday. “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.”
She touted her team for seeking to “prioritize the safety of our users” and said “the best is yet to come as X enters a new chapter” with Musk's xAI, the artificial intelligence company behind Grok.
Musk's response to Yaccarino's announcement on X was succinct: "Thank you for your contributions," he wrote.
Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in 2022 and renamed it “X” in 2023. Before joining his company in 2023, Yaccarino led NBC Universal’s advertising sales. In her statement Wednesday, she boasted of her team's effort to "restore advertiser confidence" to X, which saw an exodus of advertisers following Musk's takeover.
But Musk's close relationship with President Donald Trump as he entered his second term won over advertisers, new and old. As The New York Times reported: "X gained a second wind last year when Mr. Trump won the election. Some advertisers, courted by Ms. Yaccarino, returned to the platform partly because of Mr. Musk’s adjacency to the president. Ms. Yaccarino has said that more than 96 percent of X’s previous top brand advertisers have returned to spending money there during her tenure."
In recent months, Musk's relationship with Trump has taken a rocky turn, with the tech billionaire departing the White House after several months leading the Department of Government Efficiency's efforts to slash federal spending.