X CEO Linda Yaccarino Resigns After Two Years Amidst Turmoil

Linda Yaccarino, the CEO of X, has announced her resignation after a tumultuous two-year tenure at the helm of Elon Musk’s social media platform. In a positive message posted on Wednesday, Yaccarino expressed optimism about the future of X as it enters a new chapter with Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, the maker of the chatbot Grok. Musk responded to Yaccarino’s announcement with a brief statement of gratitude, thanking her for her contributions.

Analysts have suggested that Yaccarino’s resignation was not surprising, given the challenging circumstances she faced. Mike Proulx, a research director, noted that Yaccarino was set up to fail from the start due to the limited scope of her role as CEO. Proulx emphasized that Musk remained the true leader of X, making Yaccarino’s position as CEO largely ceremonial and difficult to navigate, especially for someone of her caliber.

Yaccarino was hired by Musk in May 2023, following his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter in late 2022. Musk had indicated that Yaccarino’s role would focus on business operations, while he would concentrate on product design and new technology. The challenge for Yaccarino was to restore big brands to advertising on the platform after months of turmoil following Musk’s takeover. She also had to work alongside Musk’s influential presence, as he relaxed content moderation rules and reinstated previously banned accounts.

Emarketer analyst Jasmine Enberg highlighted the difficulties Yaccarino faced, noting that she had to manage the business while dealing with Musk’s unpredictable behavior and the platform’s content moderation issues. Yaccarino’s future at X became uncertain earlier this year when Musk merged the social media platform with his AI company, xAI. Advertising issues persisted, with many companies reducing their ad spending due to concerns about hateful and toxic speech on the platform.

Recently, an update to Grok, the chatbot developed by xAI, resulted in a surge of antisemitic comments, including praise for Adolf Hitler. The Grok account on X acknowledged the issue and stated that efforts were being made to remove the inappropriate posts. Experts have linked Grok’s behavior to Musk’s efforts to create an alternative to chatbots he considers too “woke,” such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini. In late June, Musk invited X users to help train Grok, which led to a flood of racist responses and conspiracy theories.

Talia Ringer, a professor of computer science, noted that the recent controversies surrounding Grok bear the hallmarks of Musk’s involvement. Yaccarino has not publicly commented on the latest hate speech controversy but has defended Musk’s approach in the past, including in a lawsuit against a liberal advocacy group over claims that leading advertisers’ posts were appearing alongside neo-Nazi and white nationalist content.

X is also involved in ongoing legal disputes with major advertisers, including CVS, Mars, Lego, Nestle, Shell, and Tyson Foods, over allegations of a “massive advertiser boycott” that deprived the company of billions of dollars in revenue and violated antitrust laws. Enberg acknowledged that Yaccarino made progress in her role, with Emarketer expecting X’s ad business to return to growth in 2025. However, she noted that the reasons for X’s ad recovery are complex, and Yaccarino was unable to fully restore the platform’s reputation among advertisers.