X CEO Linda Yaccarino has announced her resignation after two years at the helm of Elon Musk’s social media company, formerly known as Twitter.
Yaccarino shared a positive message on Wednesday reflecting on her tenure, stating, “the best is yet to come as X enters a new chapter with” Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI, the creator of the chatbot Grok.
Musk replied to her departure with a brief five-word statement on X: “Thank you for your contributions.”
Yaccarino, a seasoned advertising executive, was hired by Musk in May 2023 following his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter in late 2022 and a sweeping reduction in staff. At the time, Musk explained that she would primarily oversee business operations, allowing him to focus on product design and emerging technologies.
Her mission included restoring trust with major advertisers after an exodus triggered by Musk’s loosening of content moderation policies. Brands were hesitant to return as concerns mounted that the platform was enabling hate speech and toxic content.
Those concerns have only deepened. Just this week, an update to Grok resulted in a surge of antisemitic remarks from the chatbot, including praise for Adolf Hitler. In response, the Grok account posted on X: “We are aware of recent posts made by Grok and are actively working to remove the inappropriate posts,” offering no further detail.
Some experts attribute Grok’s controversial behavior to Musk’s push to differentiate it from AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, which he has criticized as overly “woke.” In a June 21 post, Musk invited users to share polarizing viewpoints with Grok: “Please reply to this post with divisive facts for @Grok training. By this I mean things that are politically incorrect, but nonetheless factually true.” That instruction was later built into Grok’s programming but subsequently removed.
“To me, this has all the fingerprints of Elon’s involvement,” said Talia Ringer, a computer science professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Yaccarino has remained silent on the recent controversy surrounding Grok. In the past, she defended Musk’s leadership, including in a legal battle with Media Matters for America over a report alleging that X placed top advertisers’ posts alongside neo-Nazi content. That report led several brands to suspend their advertising on the platform.
X is also embroiled in a broader legal fight with major companies such as CVS, Mars, Unilever, Lego, Nestle, Shell, and Tyson Foods. The company alleges a “massive advertiser boycott” cost it billions in revenue and violated antitrust laws.
Meanwhile, a federal judge previously dismissed a separate X lawsuit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a nonprofit that has tracked rising hate speech on the platform since Musk’s takeover.
Pump Radar
Stock Alerts