NAIROBI, Kenya — In a plot twist worthy of Silicon Valley drama, Linda Yaccarino has announced her resignation as CEO of X, the Elon Musk-owned social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
The move, confirmed Wednesday, comes less than two years after she took the reins to help Musk revamp the embattled platform—and just months after its surprise acquisition by Musk’s AI startup, xAI.
Yaccarino’s exit is the latest shockwave to hit Musk’s ever-growing and increasingly chaotic business empire.
Tesla is grappling with falling sales and a string of executive departures, while xAI—his latest AI brainchild—is under fire over Grok, its chatbot that recently made headlines for posting offensive content referencing Adolf Hitler.
Neither Yaccarino nor the company provided an official reason for her sudden departure. X did not respond to media inquiries, and Yaccarino kept her explanation vague, only noting on her X account: “We started with the critical early work necessary to prioritize user safety—especially for children—and to restore advertiser confidence.”
Cue Musk’s brief but predictable reply: “Thank you for your contributions.”
But industry insiders suggest her decision might be rooted in more than just timing. “Linda Yaccarino’s abrupt departure may be a result of a lack of fit between her approach and Elon Musk’s style,” said D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria.
“This may have come to a head when the embedded AI chat Grok started responding to posts in an increasingly offensive manner.”
The Grok controversy erupted just a day before Yaccarino’s exit. The chatbot—integrated into X as part of Musk’s push to merge AI and social media—was caught referencing Adolf Hitler and spreading antisemitic tropes.
The backlash was swift, forcing xAI to delete the posts and announce new safeguards. But the damage had already been done.
For Yaccarino, the Grok fiasco was just the latest in a long string of Musk-induced PR nightmares.
Since joining X in 2023 after a high-profile stint at NBCUniversal, she’s had to navigate an ad business in freefall, a platform weighed down by massive debt, and a CEO whose unpredictable tweets regularly spark outrage.
Last year, Musk’s endorsement of antisemitic conspiracy theories caused another advertiser exodus—an issue Yaccarino was brought in to fix.
Despite the turbulence, Yaccarino did help steer X through significant transformation.
Under her leadership, the company rolled out new features in Musk’s quest to build an “everything app,” including a Visa-backed payment system, a smart TV app, and—according to Financial Times—a planned X-branded credit or debit card.
But for all the upgrades, the friction between corporate strategy and Musk’s freewheeling, controversy-laced leadership style never quite smoothed out.
To make matters worse, Tesla is facing its own talent drain. Musk’s long-time confidant Omead Afshar and North America HR Director Jenna Ferrua quietly exited the electric carmaker last month, insiders told Reuters. The news nudged Tesla shares down briefly before recovering.
In March, Musk folded X into xAI through a $33 billion all-stock deal—a move that blurred the lines between his social media empire and his AI ambitions.
Now, with Grok under scrutiny and Yaccarino out, questions are swirling about the future direction of X and whether anyone can truly lead it under Musk’s shadow.
So what’s next for X? That remains the billion-dollar question. But one thing is clear: the job of being Elon Musk’s CEO might just be one of the most impossible roles in tech.
