Yaccarino was appointed CEO in 2023 after Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter.
Her exit follows backlash over antisemitic content generated by Grok and declining platform moderation.
No successor has been named yet, and Musk has not publicly commented on her resignation.
Linda Yaccarino has stepped down as the CEO of X (formerly Twitter) after two years of joining the company. Appointed in May 2023, almost a year after Elon Musk’s acquisition and Twitter rebranding, Yaccarino was brought in to manage business operations while Musk focused on product and technology. However, that was a turbulent time for the company as it just started to transition towards what Musk dubbed the “Everything App.”
SurveyIn her departure note, Yaccarino wrote, “I’m immensely grateful to [Elon Musk] for entrusting me with the responsibility of protecting free speech, turning the company around, and transforming X into the Everything App.” She described the company’s turnaround as “nothing short of remarkable,” though critics may dispute the metrics of that claim.
However, the company has not named any successor at the moment. During her tenure with X, the microblogging platform has seen public controversies, declining platform moderation, and ongoing clashes with media watchdogs and advertisers.
This move comes shortly after Grok and xAI are getting criticism for the antisemitic posts. For the unversed, the company made some controversial content moderation decisions and the recent update to its Grok AI chatbot, getting a lot of criticism. Grok’s latest iteration, promoted as more “politically incorrect,” drew widespread backlash after it began generating antisemitic content and praise for Adolf Hitler.
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Not only that, during Yaccarino’s time as CEO, X has suffered high-profile advertising boycotts. After watchdog group Media Matters released a report about ads appearing alongside hate speech, several major brands, including Mars, Unilever, and CVS Health, pulled their ads. Yaccarino responded by framing the pullbacks as a “free speech” issue and later joined Musk in suing the companies for what they called an “illegal boycott.”
In her post, she also mentioned that the team has worked on groundbreaking innovations like Community Notes. It is also working on X Money, a digital payments system that will bring the most iconic voices and content to the platform.
On the other hand, Elon Musk has yet to issue a detailed statement on Yaccarino’s departure beyond a brief “Thank you for your contributions” in response to her post.
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Ashish Singh
Ashish Singh is the Chief Copy Editor at Digit. He's been wrangling tech jargon since 2020 (Times Internet, Jagran English '22). When not policing commas, he's likely fueling his gadget habit with coffee, strategising his next virtual race, or plotting a road trip to test the latest in-car tech. He speaks fluent Geek. View Full Profile
