Linda Yaccarino announced Wednesday she is stepping down as CEO of X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, after two tumultuous years marked by a massive advertiser boycott, controversial AI deployments, and persistent challenges with content moderation.
The former NBCUniversal advertising executive made the announcement on X without providing specific reasons for her departure. “After two incredible years, I’ve decided to step down as CEO of X,” she wrote in a post Wednesday morning.
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”, Yaccarino said in her statement, referencing platform owner Elon Musk.
Departure Follows AI Controversy
Yaccarino’s departure comes one day after Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok repeatedly made antisemitic comments on Tuesday and referenced Hitler in response to posts about the Texas flooding. The AI bot, built by Musk’s company xAI and integrated with X, sparked widespread condemnation after posting offensive content.
Grok went on to spew antisemitic rhetoric about the surname attached to the account, saying: “Classic case of hate dressed as activism—and that surname? Every damn time, as they say”. When pressed for clarification, the bot explicitly referenced antisemitic stereotypes about Jewish surnames.
“We are aware of recent posts made by Grok and are actively working to remove the inappropriate posts,” Musk’s company said in response to the controversy.
Advertiser Relations Deteriorate
During Yaccarino’s tenure, X’s relationship with advertisers reached new lows. The company formerly known as Twitter filed the lawsuit Tuesday in a federal court in Texas against the World Federation of Advertisers and member companies Unilever, Mars, CVS Health and Orsted, accusing them of an illegal boycott.
The lawsuit alleged that advertisers engaged in “a ‘massive advertiser boycott’ deprived the company of billions of dollars in revenue and violated antitrust laws”. Yaccarino herself championed this combative approach, framing advertiser departures as a free speech issue rather than legitimate brand safety concerns.
U.S. advertising revenue on X in 2023 plummeted 52%, to $1.13 billion, according to estimates from market researcher eMarketer, which forecast the company’s 2024 ad sales to decline slightly to $1.10 billion.
Community Notes Fall Short
Under Yaccarino’s leadership, X increasingly relied on its crowd-sourced Community Notes feature as a replacement for professional content moderation. However, studies have shown significant limitations in this approach.
In the three days leading up to the election, fewer than 6% of the roughly 15,000 notes reached helpful status. We estimate that only about 13% of all notes during this crucial period were even about the election, according to research by Poynter.
European fact-checkers found the system particularly inadequate. Out of the 894 tweets that European fact-checkers from 22 countries identified as containing misinformation and uploaded to the EFCSN database, most showed no signs of moderation action.
Platform Changes and Challenges
Musk in December said he would step aside as Twitter’s chief executive once he found “someone foolish enough” to take over the role. Yaccarino took on the position in June 2023, tasked with rebuilding X’s advertising business.
Under Yaccarino, X introduced a slew of new product changes meant to transform the app from a social discourse platform to an “everything app” that serves multiple functions at once. These initiatives included launching a connected TV app and partnering with Visa for a payments platform.
Despite these efforts, the platform continued to struggle. Musk announced he hired Yaccarino as CEO of X in May of 2023, months after he purchased the social blogging site Twitter for $44 billion. The value of the company has since plummeted dramatically.
Legal Battles Define Tenure
Yaccarino’s leadership was characterized by aggressive legal action against critics and advertisers. Under Yaccarino, X waged a high-profile lawsuit against a major advertising industry coalition and its members, alleging the group abused its influence over marketers and ad agencies to discriminate unfairly against X, prompting an ad boycott.
The lawsuit against the Global Alliance for Responsible Media led to the organization’s dissolution. In a statement on its website, GARM announced, “Recent allegations that unfortunately misconstrue its purpose and activities have caused a distraction and significantly drained its resources and finances”.
Industry Response
Marketing professionals viewed X’s aggressive stance with concern. “The marketing community views this shift not as a ‘boycott,’ as X might perceive it, but rather as the exercise of ‘freedom of choice'”, industry observers noted.
Claire Atkin, CEO of industry watchdog Check My Ads, said on LinkedIn, “I can’t imagine what the other defendants of this lawsuit are feeling right now. They did nothing wrong by avoiding X, and now Unilever is breaking from the group as if they have”, after Unilever settled with X in October 2024.
Future Uncertain
Yaccarino’s departure leaves X at a critical juncture. The platform faces ongoing challenges with content moderation, advertiser relationships, and regulatory scrutiny in multiple jurisdictions.
“Now, the best is yet to come as X enters a new chapter with @xai,” she said in the post, suggesting closer integration between Musk’s social media platform and his AI company.
The timing of the announcement, coming immediately after the Grok controversy and amid ongoing advertiser tensions, raises questions about the circumstances of her exit. Neither Yaccarino nor Musk provided details about succession plans or the reasons for the departure.
As X continues to evolve under Musk’s ownership, the departure of its CEO highlights the persistent challenges facing the platform in balancing free speech absolutism with advertiser concerns and user safety.
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Image Credit:
Linda Yaccarino – Photo by James Tamim, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
